


Lonesome Dreams

by narigonia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Canon Divergence, Avengers Family, BAMF Bucky Barnes, Brooding in Cabins, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, European Vacation, Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Natasha Romanov/Clint Barton - Freeform, Minor Violence, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, PTSD, Paris - Freeform, Post Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-TWS, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, Rome - Freeform, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Self-Discovery, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Travel, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier is a Tourist, cap!steve - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2018-12-24 01:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narigonia/pseuds/narigonia
Summary: The Winter Soldier inadvertently becomes a tourist, our good Captain isn't too far behind, and poor Sam is just along for the ride.





	1. The Ghost on the Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Long time reader, first time poster here. The following fic is the result of listening to Lord Huron's album Lonesome Dreams on repeat while on vacation. Each chapter is loosely tied to one of the tracks from the album and they are worth a listen if you like indie folk music. I hope you enjoy!

_"I'm just a man but I know that I'm damned all the dead seem to know where I am."_

_\- The Ghost on the Shore  
_

***

The dream came one year, three months, and one week after the soldier's final battle.

Old memories pushing forward from the scramble of his brain were nothing new by now. They had started coming fast and thick almost a week after his escape. In his more lucid moments he reasoned this was why none of his missions had ever extended longer then seven days.

At first the onslaught of memories had been... uncomfortable.

They had pushed through at all times of the day and night. Most of them were filled with blood and screams and the terrible understanding that he had been the cause of both. The memories left him confused and sent splitting pains through his head.

It was three months, one week, and two days after his escape when he finally gave up on pushing the memories back and instead let them come as they would. Things started working better after that. The pain lessened, he stopped loosing gaps of time, and older memories started to appear.

The dream was one of the old memories.

In the dream he sat next to a small, battered bed. His body was smaller, more angular, and a hell of a lot less muscular. Somewhere in the background of his sleeping mind he recognized that this was his teenage body, though the idea that he could have ever been so small seems preposterous.

The room he sat in was cold and poorly lit. There was no window, but he knew it was very late at night. Piled on the bed was a stack of blankets that almost buried the occupant, a frail, blond boy. The blond boy was flushed from fever, his bright blue eyes glassy and not entirely focused.

He turned to the soldier, "Promise me we'll go to all of them Buck. Once I'm on my feet again promise me we'll see the entire list."

The boy was gripping a grimy sheet of paper. From where he sat, the soldier could only see the top line. It said in small cursive letters, _Paris_.

The blond boy struggled to sit up and hand the list to the soldier, but just as the soldier reached out to take it the room started to go hazy. He could feel his consciousness being pulled up to awareness and then he was awake.

The soldier laid in bed and focused on breathing for a few minutes. It was a technique he had found online and, despite his initial skepticism, it was beneficial.

He grabbed a notebook off of the nightstand and, flicking on the light, wrote down the dream. In recent months he had felt a marked improvement in his ability to remember daily events. But he knew that this may not always be the case and this dream was _very important_. He could feel it. Just as he could feel that he was still missing part of it.

He grit his teeth and willed his jumbled mind to reveal the rest of the memory. After an hour or so he stopped trying. The memory had gone back to where it had come from and no amount of concentration would call it forward again.

Instead he stared up at the wooden beams above him and watched as sunlight slowly started to fill the small cabin room. Something about this memory called to him in a way that nothing had since his escape.

_Paris._

He thought he had been to Paris before. He had an impression of sneaking through a bombed out city, the blond boy, now a healthy man, leading the way. He might have been captured, or almost captured, or threatened by capture. In hindsight, it had been a stupid plan to try and sneak around an occupied city with the poster child for the Allied forces leading the charge. He might have said something about that at the time too, but he couldn't be sure.

What he did know was that a covert mission was not what the little blond boy had had in mind when he wrote that list.

_Steve._

The blond was called Steve.

Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier's final mission. His only failed mission.

_Stevie._

His younger self had been about to promise Steve that they would visit a list of places.

A voice floated up from his jumbled memories, "There's too much out there to stay in one place. Brooklyn will always be waiting here for us Stevie, ya know we'll be back one day." The voice was not Steve's, but his own. He didn't know when he had said it or if he had even said it at all. The part of his head that stored memories was not trustworthy most of the time.

His chest started to feel tight and a familiar headache started to form as he thought more about the dream.

He turned to his side and pulled a slim booklet out from underneath his pillow.

Before he'd fled D.C. he had made two stops. The first was to raid an abandoned Hydra base for supplies. The second was to see a museum exhibit. While he'd taken all manner of things from his first stop, he'd only taken one from the second, a small booklet with details about an exhibit on display. It was this booklet that the soldier pulled out from under his pillow and opened as he tried to calm his mind. The booklet was dogeared and worn and he had the profiles of each of the Howling Commandos memorized but looking at the photos helped to center him.

His favorite picture, though he wouldn't admit it, was the image of the man called Bucky Barnes with his arm slung around Captain America. The two of them wore the biggest smiles the soldier had ever seen as they looked at one another. He had tried to make that smile in the mirror a few times but it always looked more like a snarl. When he was having a very bad day he wondered if he would ever be able to smile that way again.

Birds started to sing outside of his cabin and the soldier knew that there was another beautiful day waiting. He hadn't had beautiful days a year ago. He hadn't had anything but a mission, a handler, and the promise of pain and ice. Now he had a cabin, a warm bed at night, and a wide northern lake all to himself. He was pleased with how far he had come. He tried to set aside the dream and got up. He dressed in jeans, a button up flannel, and a sweatshirt. He was proud to be able to both get up and get dressed entirely on his own.

He puttered around the kitchen making coffee and pancakes. He liked that he was now free to putter. He tried to concentrate on the tasks at hand, but his mind kept wandering back to the dream. Had he promised that they'd go? Had he lied? Where else was on the list? With an effort he laid the questions aside and took his morning hike. He felt comfortable in the forest, the wilds gave him a measure of peace he never would have anticipated.

He spent the afternoon chopping wood and stacking it up neatly. It was early summer but the nights still got cold. As he stacked the wood he avoided thinking about the dream by reviewing other memories he had:

  1. He remembered the first thing he learned to cook by himself (pancakes).
  2. He remembered the first piece of clothing he bought for himself (a black leather jacket from a secondhand store).
  3. He remembered the first shower he took on his own (he had stood in the hot water for almost two hours reveling in the warmth).



Perhaps his happiest memory to date was the day he found the cabin last fall. It had been all alone on the edge of the lake and for some reason it had called to him. The roof and front porch had both been rotting in places but the issues weren't anything he couldn't fix. He had decided to stay.

Fixing the cabin was another achievement he was proud of.

 _"Paris,"_ his treacherous mind whispered.

***

That night as the soldier secured the perimeter and reviewed his alarms he finally gave in to the dream. He crawled into bed and let his mind examine the dream piece by piece.

He had been planning to go to Paris with Steve for fun.

The soldier mulled that over. Traveling for fun. He wasn't sure he even knew what fun felt like. That bothered him and he didn't know why.

He was warm, he was clean, he was better fed than he had been in decades (his ribs now longer showed at least), he was relatively safe, and he was, most importantly, free. Even if he wanted to know why the memory was so important, even if, as he felt in his bones, it was an event that had significantly shaped his past self, he would be a fool to jeopardize his current safety in search of an answer he might never find.

He would stay here. He would stay alone.

His decision made, the soldier closed his eyes and allowed sleep to overtake him.

_The soldier was once again sitting in the tiny, poorly lit room. The blond boy again handed him the list, the word Paris in big bold letters across the top. But this time the smile on the blond boy's face disappeared as he looked at the soldier "You don't want to be a ghost again do you?" Steve asked._

_The little boy's eyes were as crystal blue as the lake the soldier had claimed for his own and the soldier fell into them, he swam in them. He burst from the lake and swam vainly for shore, for his safe little cabin, his left arm dragged him down. He swam and swam and when he reached the shore someone was waiting for him. The man from his favorite photo, the man whose face he shared stood hunched on the sand, his hands stuffed deep inside the pockets of his blue coat. His outline was wispy as he looked down at the soldier with a sad smile._

_"Ya gonna stay on this lake forever then? It's beautiful, I'll give you that. It's a hell of a lot better than the other places we've died."_

He woke up with a strangled gasp and a knife in each hand. He panted silently, scanning the room and listening intently for the slightest noise. Outside an owl hooted and a loon called. He was alone. The only threat was from a ghost and a sickly boy long gone. He laid back down, aware that he wouldn't get more sleep tonight. Not with both dreams still so vivid in his head.

He thought about the memory of the list and the feeling that if he could just remember the rest of the scene everything else would fall into place. Outside the night slowly faded, the sky lightened, and inside of the cabin the soldier came up with a plan.

In the morning he packed for Paris.


	2. Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam Wilson truly is a gift and Natasha is an exceptionally good bro. Paris, here we come!

_"Don't turn away, don't tell me that we're not the same_

_We face the fire together, brothers 'til the end_

_Don't run away, our time will come but not today_

_I stand beside you, brother, with you 'til the end."_

\- Brother

***

It had been one year, three months, two weeks, and three days since Steve had last seen Bucky.

Of that time, two days had been spent in a hospital in D.C., one day had been wasted on packing, seven months on raiding former SHIELD bases, and the next eight and half twiddling his damned thumbs while he waited for more leads to materialize.

As a rule, Steve hated waiting.

He hadn’t waited to see the fall out from Project Insight, nor had he waited for permission from whatever politician or general was tasked with trying to salvage what was left of SHIELD. From the day he’d ripped that mask from the Winter Soldier’s face Steve had had only one thing on his mind, finding James Buchanan Barnes.

For seven months a furious Steve and a very concerned Sam had flown across the globe capturing Hydra operatives, gathering intelligence, and generally laying waste to anything even remotely connected to Hydra.

“Man, when they came up with that “replace one head and another will grow” shit they really hadn’t seen you angry Rogers,” commented Sam after a particularly bloody fight. Steve had given a tight nod and then proceeded to burn the entire base to the ground.

Sam would be the first to admit that he was more than a little concerned by the reckless edge that now colored Steve’s fighting, not to mention the newfound love of burning things to the ground. But he tried to hold on to the perspective that expressing emotions was better than the stoicism Steve had been clinging to since he’d been de-iced.

During the initial months of “rampaging” (Tony’s term) Steve’s phone had rung constantly. He ignored phone calls from the White House, from generals, and from politicians of all parties. He also ignored phone calls from Tony, Clint, Natasha and, occasionally, Bruce.

If Thor had owned a cell phone he probably would have pestered Steve as well. As it was, the thunder god sometimes sent messenger ravens with tiny pieces of paper tied to their legs. It was harder to ignore those than the calls but Steve still managed it.

After the first few months the calls from the White House, the generals, and the politicians stopped coming. Captain America's Revenge Tour (Clint’s term) served their own interests and as long as he kept sending Hydra agents home for trial they were happy.

His team kept on calling:

**"Capsicle, it's Tony. Obviously. Look I have an idea for a giant magnet that I think could lock onto your boyfriend's arm and pull him straight to the Tower. But I'll only invent it if you come home and let Pepper fuss over you."**

***

"Yo, it's Clint. Nat keeps giving me that look, the one with the one raised eyebrow? So, I told her I'd call you. You should really come home, regroup, and then we can all set out together to start looking. Plus, Nat told me you only packed like two pairs of extra underwear and trust me when I say your boy is nooot gonna be down with gross ass underwear during your reunion.

***bang bang***

_‘Clint get out of my god damned air ducts!’_

I gotta go, but take care yourself, okay?"

***

"It's me. Still nothing concrete but I'll keep you posted."

***

And, on one particularly persistent raven’s leg:

STEVEN MY FRIEND! COME HOME AND LET US AID YOU IN YOUR QUEST. I’M SURE HEIMDALL WOULD BE VERY HAPPY TO LOOK FOR YOUR BROTHER IN ARMS AND THE TEAM WORRIES FOR YOU.

YOUR WORK FRIEND,

THOR ODINSON

***

It took seven months of voicemails, five messenger ravens, innumerable insightful words from Sam, and the Captain America Revenge Tour: Return of the Intervention (Tony's name) for Steve to reluctantly agree to take a break. Sam had looked teary-eyed when Steve had announced his decision.

But if the team thought that Steve would be any less driven to find Bucky once he was back in the safety of Avengers Tower they were quickly proven wrong.

When he wasn’t (reluctantly) helping to rebuild SHIELD or acting as a witness for the congressional investigation into the whys and hows of an advanced weapon system being approved to just hang out in the sky all day (a fair question) Steve did nothing besides run and review old Hydra files.

Worse still, he refused any and all help.

There was little information about the Winter Soldier in the files dumped online. Steve knew that if he asked, Natasha would help him find more. She probably already had an entire filing cabinet of information on Bucky. But Steve wanted Bucky's past to be private. It was probably dumb, nothing about Steve's past was private. But that had been his choice, Bucky hadn't had any choice.

After eight months of research, all Steve had to show for his work was one slim manila folder. It was this small volume that he sat pouring over for the millionth time late one night in the Tower's common room.

He yawned, his eyes drooping with exhaustion as the words in front of him began to swim. He knew them all by heart but he kept hoping that if he looked one more time he’d find something that would lead him to Bucky. His eyes drooped again and, when he opened them, Nat sat across from him.

He jumped.

"Jeez Nat, would you stop doing that?"

"Doing what?" She asked, tilting her head to the side, a small smile on her face. "I was merely walking into the common room when I found a man asleep and drooling on his research."

She tapped one perfectly manicured finger to her lips, "That sounds more like Bruce or Tony then you Steve. I would have thought your brilliant tactician's mind would know better than to waste valuable time and resources such as the world's greatest covert operative." She gestured to herself.

Steve scowled.

Of all of his friends Nat was the most relentless in her attempts to break down Steve’s walls, to get him to accept help.

By now everyone else had dropped the subject.

"Back off Nat, I'm fine," He snarled. Somewhere in the back of his sleep deprived mind he knew that if his Ma could hear him, hell, if Bucky could hear him right now they'd both be ashamed of how he was treating her.

But if Nat was surprised by his rudeness she didn't show it. Her face settled into her patented “nothing bothers me” expression.

"You are not fine Steve. You are a fucking mess. You have not slept more than four hours a night since you got back with Sam. You slept even less while you were out rampaging."

"Oh, so you and Sam are keeping tabs on me now?" Steve grumbled, sounding like a petulant child even to himself.

Nat ignored him.

"You are barely eating, certainly not enough for your metabolism, and you are making poor decisions. Running yourself into the ground will not find him and I will not stand by and watch you destroy yourself."

"Are you done?" He snapped. Something flickered in Nat's eyes; there was a split second of something like fear before her mask slipped back into place. It was enough to stop him from storming out of the room. It was enough for him to realize that this was the first time Nat had schooled her expressions around him since the fall of SHIELD.

He knew she wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid for him.

Steve could pretty much count on one hand the number of people who cared enough about him to feel that way. He swallowed and looked down at his hands. They were trembling slightly. His head ached and all of a sudden he was aware of how hungry he was. He felt a lump in his throat and when he looked back up Nat's face was blurry.

He was so tired. And scared. So scared that he'd never find Bucky, that he'd fail him again. Minutes stretched on in silence as Steve fought back all of the words desperately trying to push themselves out of his mouth.

"What if they've got him again Nat? I can't stand the thought of him out there alone and hurt. I need to find him. I need to-" his voice cracked and suddenly he was crying, great gasping sobs. He felt Nat curl herself around him and for a brief moment Steve let himself pretend it was someone else's arms comforting him.

He didn't know how long they stayed that way. Natasha holding him while he cried out what felt like 70 years of sorrow.

Eventually, he stopped. His sobs becoming little hiccups that he was sure “Captain America” shouldn’t get. Captain American shouldn’t cry at all and, if he did, it should be one lone tear trailing heroically down his cheek. Not the mess of snot and tears currently stuck to his face and, embarrassingly, the collar of Nat’s shirt.

Avoiding Nat's eye he tried to pull back, but in a show of just how strong she really was she kept him firmly in place.

"It's too late to put that wall back up now Steve.” She said softly.

“Captain American doesn’t cry and leave snot all over his friend’s shoulders.” The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Nat just snorted.

“I don’t give a shit about Captain America. He’s too patriotic and he’s got a stick up his ass. All I care about is Steve Rogers.” Her words were fierce and Steve felt the last remnants of resistance drain from him. He hugged her back.

"Having emotions does not make you weak. Not properly utilizing your team and pushing yourself to your breaking point is what makes you weak.” Steve slowly nodded, rubbing more snot into her collar. After a few more moments Nat let him pull away.

“Thank you Nat.” He looked her straight in the eye as he said it, hoping he could express how truly thankful he was.

Her lips quirked up a bit and he saw her mask slowly start to drop.

“I’m ah, I’m sorry I got snot all over your shirt.” He gave her a sheepish grin and she smiled back, a true, honest to god Natasha Romanova smile.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I can find someone to buy it off me now that it’s got a national treasure’s bodily fluids all over it.” He blushed at her implication and her smile turned into a Cheshire cat grin.

“So, now what?” He asked, too exhausted to think.

“Well, first I’m going to put this shirt on eBay. Then you are going to go take a vacation-“ She cut him off when he would have protested.

“You are going to take a vacation somewhere that’s not New York, D.C., or some third world country where Barnes may or may not be.” The look in her eye promised that there would be no weaseling out of this, not if he wanted her help.

“How can I take a vacation when Bucky is still out there somewhere, when Hydra could have him right now?” Steve demanded.

“Steve, trust me, if he’d been taken back into custody by Hydra I would know. I may have lost a lot of covers in the fall out, but I still have sources. He’s managed this far to stay off the radar and if you spend another week like this you’ll end up in the hospital."

Steve sighed and shook his head, he just didn’t know. It seemed like a betrayal.

But Nat smelled blood in the water and she wasn’t going to give up.

“It will be easy. I’ll have one of Stark’s peons book a trip for you and Sam and all you’ll have to do is show up."

“Sam? I don’t know Nat, I already dragged him around for seven months. I doubt he wants to go on another trip with me.”

“Don’t you dare rob me of a free vacation Rogers,” Sam’s voice came from directly behind him and Steve jumped for the second time that night.

He really was out of it. Maybe he did need to take a break.

Steve scrubbed a hand down his face.

When he looked up again Sam had rounded the table to stand, arms crossed, next to Natasha. Both of their faces said that he was going on a vacation whether or not he wanted to.

"It's not that I don't trust you or the rest of the team it's just... Even when I had nothing I always had Buck. He was, is like a..."

Steve struggled to put a name to the wild mess of emotions churning inside of him. He had spent many late nights, both before and after his time on ice, trying to make sense of them all. It didn’t take a genius to know his feelings towards Bucky were much more than that of a friend, but he’d never told anyone the truth of it all. Even if he could trust Nat and Sam he knew saying the words out loud would change his relationship with Bucky forever.

"Like a brother. He's a brother to me." He finished lamely, staring down at the floor and rubbing his neck in a poorly concealed attempt to avoid eye contact.

Positioned as he was, Steve missed the eye roll that Natasha made or how she mouthed the word "denial" to Sam.

“Steve,” Sam waited until Steve looked up at him before he continued, “We know how important this is to you. We’re going to find him together.” He spoke with such conviction that Steve felt more hopeful than he had in months.

A soft thump came from above and all three of them looked up. Clint’s head stuck out from an air duct, his face far too serious for someone who was currently hanging upside down from a vent, “We won’t stop until we get him for you Cap, I promise.”

“How is this my life?” Sam asked, throwing his hands up into the air and making Steve laugh.

He looked from Nat, to Sam, and up to Clint. Each of their faces shone with concern and a grim sort of determination.

Stubborn as he could be even Steve had to admit that he just might be beat. He sighed.

“Okay, okay, I’ll take a vacation. But it won’t be too long. A week tops and I want updates on any information you find as soon as you have it.”

From his position halfway out of the vent Clint mock cheered the announcement.

“That’s good enough for me!” Sam announced, his grin nearly splitting his face in half. “I can’t wait! Lets go to London, oh, or Greece. Thailand? Man, I gotta go pack. Come on Rogers, you have to catch up on your sleep because we are going to tour like it’s our damn job.” Sam started for the door.

“You go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Steve waved him along before turning back to Nat.

He kept it simple, “Thank you again Natasha.”

“Anytime Steve, anytime,” she said with a small smile.

“Yeah, you’re welcome pal,” Clint called down from the vents. Nat sighed and rolled her eyes.

***

Steve spent the next three days sleeping. He only left his bed to go to the bathroom or stuff food in his mouth. On the fourth day he awoke to find a brand new hiking backpack next to his front door. It was completely packed. On top of it were his passport and a travel itinerary.

His first stop? Paris.


	3. To the Ends of the Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve only been to Paris once and it's been a while since I've stayed in a hostel so apologies for any inconsistencies or mistakes. I also ask that you suspend your disbelief at the fact that Bucky was able to find an open single room at the first hostel he tries. Finally, no offense meant to all of the people named Kale out there!

“To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

If you will have a say my goodbyes to me”

***

When the soldier finally stepped off of the plane in Paris he almost bent down to kiss the worn black carpet of the airport terminal. He hadn’t felt this terrible since his very first months of freedom. His body was covered in sweat, his jaw ached from clenching, and he felt so tired he was tempted to find a nice quiet air duct to curl up in and sleep.

He’d operated under worse physical conditions of course, but the difference now was that he no longer had to operate under terrible physical conditions. He had the power to decide how he felt physically, which made feeling gross and tired that much more infuriating.

Still, despite feeling disgusting and grumpy, the trip had gone well.

He’d used one of the stacks of Hydra funded VISA gift cards and a fake Hydra passport to purchase his ticket online and then had it printed at a local library. There had been the small matter of avoiding security (even he couldn’t hide the metal arm attached to his body) but sneaking into the airport had been pretty easy.

Once he was inside he had simply forged an illegible signature onto his boarding pass and voila he was air born.

Of course, any high he’d felt from successfully penetrating the airport had quickly disappeared once the flight had taken off. Who knew so many people could be squeezed onto one tin can? The only thing that had gotten him through the press of people all around him had been deep breathing exercises and the companion dog that he'd been fortunate enough to sit next to. Even with the brown lab's head resting covertly on the soldier's thigh he had still left finger dents in both armrests.

All he wanted to do, besides kiss the carpet, was run screaming from the crush of people before he started stabbing things at random. Unfortunately he still had one stop left before he could leave. He needed intel to successfully navigate the city.

He needed…a guidebook.

He ignored the beautiful red glow of the “Exit” sign, the soldier turned into the first airport bookstore he could find.

To his great relief it was empty except for a clerk and the soldier felt a measure of calm return as he inhaled the soft scent of pages and book glue. He felt…nostalgic for something. If he closed his eyes he could just feel the soft weight of paper beneath his fingers, he could hear the _shush_ of pages being turned.

 _Do I like to read?_ He wondered.

The soldier spent the next hour wandering around the bookstore, unaware of the time passing as he read through the book titles. In the end he bought a travel guide and a book called _The Hobbit_ that sounded so familiar he thought he might have already read it.

It was a wholly unnecessary purchase, but that felt like a great reason to buy it. The soldier could have unnecessary things now.

Feeling a hell of a lot calmer, the soldier stuffed the books into his rucksack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the train.

Mission to find intel was complete.

Next mission: find secure place to stay.

With the help of his newly purchased guidebook he picked out a hostel close to the center of the city. The hostel was creatively called "Hostel Paris" and was located right on the southern edge of the 7th arrondisement, which, the guidebook assured him meant that it was “close enough to see the sites without being trampled by the crowds.” Being trampled by a crowd was the least of his worries.

In a token show of security the hostel had a bell that new guests had to ring to be let in. Alternatively, you could trail in after a guest that already had a keycard, which was what the soldier chose to do. He was an ex-assassin after all.

"Hey man, how's it hanging?" The front door clerk did not seem remotely peeved that a strange bearded man had entered without ringing the bell. He didn’t sound remotely French either. Skinny, awkwardly tall, and topped off with long blond hair, the clerk looked like he belonged at a beach.

The soldier played back the man’s question in his head and decided he didn’t know how to answer. He settled on a nod and a noncommittal grunting noise.

“I been there man, you have a reservation?” The man gave the soldier a big lazy grin.

The soldier made a mental note to practice making lazy grins and shook his head no. 

"Well, you're in luck man, it’s still early enough in the tourist season that we got a couple different openings. My name is Kale and I can help you get set up."

The soldier blinked. _Kale?_

The man, Kale, gave the soldier another big smile and the soldier nodded again.

"Right now we have openings in our six person room, one double is open, and we actually do have a single room but it costs more and it's only open for the next five days."

"I'll take the single." The soldier croaked. His voice was rusty and it occurred to him that he couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d spoken.

"Great man, that will be 590 Euros. We take card or cash and I'll need to see some ID with either." Kale smiled widely as the soldier slapped down his cash and pulled out the second of his fake passports.

"Thanks..." Kale peered down at the soldier's passport "…Carl, now I just need you to look over our agreement form and sign it." The soldier skimmed across the form and signed his fake name, Carl Johnson, at the bottom.

"Alright man, you're all set. Here's your keycard, you can use that to get in the front entrance 24/7 and it's keyed to your room too. You’re in room 5B on the top floor. Quiet hours start at 10 pm and someone is always at the desk if you have any issues. Your room has a separate shower and check out is at 10 am on your last day,” Kale beamed at him as he finished his spiel.

The soldier decided to go for it and tried to smile back. He could tell he still hadn't gotten it when Kale jumped slightly. The soldier quickly stopped trying to smile and croaked out a “Thank you,” before he hightailed it up the stairs.

***

It took thirty minutes for the soldier to secure his room. First he scanned for bugs, next he tested the door and window locks, lightly rapped the walls and floors for any false doors, and checked under every piece of furniture for any bombs or other traps. Once he confirmed that it was secure, he lay out a few nasty traps of his own. It really was amazing what you could sneak through an airport, granted, he’d skipped security, but still.

His work done, the soldier stretched and surveyed his room. It was small, only about 400 square feet, with a bed, tiny side table, and safe all squeezed in tight. A small window was located directly across from the door with the bathroom to the left and the bed pushed up against the wall on the right.

Small spaces meant that there was less chance someone could sneak up on him. He felt his shoulders and back finally began to relax. With a deep exhale he dragged himself to the tiny bathroom where he washed his face and examined himself in the mirror. His beard really was getting out of control, as was his hair. Fortunately, the mountain man look was currently popular in the U.S. and, paired with a comfy flannel shirt and jeans, he’d blended right in walking through the American airport.

However, the excess hair would make him stick out here. He needed to shave and he needed to cut his hair if he wanted to keep his trail hidden.

Tomorrow he decided.

He spent a few minutes practicing his smiles. They looked even worse after seeing the easy way the clerk had smiled.

The clerk named Kale. God, what kind of name was that? What kind of world was this where children were named after obscure vegetation?

The soldier felt a muscle spasm near his mouth and when he looked back in the mirror he was pleased to see that the right corner of his lips had quirked up on their own. It made him look a little lighter, a little less like the former assassin he was and a little more like the man he used to be. He thought more about Kale and he felt his lips quirk up further in response.

It was a smile. Not a big lazy one like Kale's, it was small and tight, but it was still a smile.

The soldier went to sleep that night with a warm and pleasant feeling in his chest.

***

The next day presented a bit of a problem for the soldier. Now that he had arrived at his destination he didn't know what to do next. He had come to Paris to try and jog the rest of his memory, to lay a few ghosts from his past to rest. But he didn’t know how to get a memory back or where to even start. Hell, if he knew how to just remember things he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

As was his habit now when he didn’t know what to do, he focused on the small tasks first.

He got out of bed and stretched. He ate one of his granola bars and made a mental note to get more food today. Then he took a long hot shower, washing away the grimy feeling he’d had since getting off of the plane last night.

As he wiped away the steam in the mirror afterwards, he was confronted again by the wild mass of hair his face had become. He needed to cut his hair and shave. He padded out of the shower and over to his backpack where he pulled out one of the many ceramic knives he always had with him. Back in the bathroom he held out a chunk of his wet hair, ready to saw it off.

He paused.

As the Winter Soldier someone else had shaved him and hacked off his hair whenever it had gotten in the way. But he remembered a bit about cutting hair from his time before Hydra. He used to cut Steve's hair, but it never looked good afterwards. He knew that even if he couldn't remember quite how Steve's hair had looked. The soldier looked back at his reflection. He could cut his hair now but it would not look like other people’s hair. He needed to stay inconspicuous and a hacked off haircut would only draw attention.

He scratched his beard.

He had a new mission: get his hair cut and his beard shaved.

The first step, as with most missions, was to gather intelligence.

After getting dressed and brushing out his unruly hair and beard as best he could, the soldier swung his pack over his shoulder, carefully locked his door, and went to downstairs to the front desk of the hostel. The same man from the night before sat behind the counter. Kale. The soldier’s lips twitched again into his tight lipped smile.

"Hey Carl!" Kale waved at him.

The soldier blinked, momentarily forgetting that his name right now was Carl. He was loosing some of his touch, but he didn’t feel particularly bad about it.

“Hey,” he grunted. The soldier had rehearsed what he would say upstairs as he was getting dressed, so the words came easily, “Do you know a good place to get a haircut? I, uh, really need one.” The soldier tried out his new tight-lipped smile and was pleased when Kale gave him a big easy grin in return.

"Totally, you looking for something high end? Or cheap and dirty?" The last time the soldier had paid for a haircut there had only been cheap and dirty. He was tempted to go with what he knew but… what would be the last thing potential tales would look for in a Winter Soldier haircut?

"High end." He said.

"Right on brother! You speak French?"

"Oui"

"Perfect man, you should go to this little place called Cheveux Magnifiques. It's a few blocks away, here I'll show you." Kale pulled out a map and traced a path in pen. The soldier quickly committed the route to memory, but he took the map Kale offered anyway.

"They are super pricey but my lady just started cutting hair there and she's still building up her client list. She's really good. They usually do appointment only but she'll fit you in."

"Thank you." The soldier said, unsure of how to react to someone being so helpful.

It could be a trap. It could also be someone just being nice.

He decided to split the difference and check the place out, but while on extra high alert.

"No problem Carl, I'll let her know you're on your way."

The soldier paused, thinking carefully about his next words.

"Call me James. I go by my middle name most of the time." He tensed waiting for the response.

"Sure thing James!" Kale beamed at him.

The soldier didn't know if he could be Bucky again, but he thought he could be a James.

With a little wave at Kale, James left the hostel and headed for the salon.

***

Three hours later and James felt like he really was a different person. Kale's "lady" was named Angelique. She’d taken one look at his messy hair and a gleam of delight had filled her eye. The haircut itself had been nerve wracking, but he had managed to focus on the steady stream of words falling from Angelique's mouth. She was more than happy to pick up the conversational slack while he kept his face composed and tried not to leave finger marks in the armrests.

The haircut had been stressful, expensive, and completely out of his comfort zone but in the end he thought it had been worth it.

He no longer looked like the Winter Soldier. He didn’t look like Sergeant Barnes either.

His beard was gone and his hair... well his hair was in a style he'd never have chosen but he had to admit he liked it. It was trimmed short, almost buzzed, on the sides and back with longer hair on top. The stylist had thrown some sort of goop in it too that made the hair stand up just a little spiky.

"Avec cette coupe de cheveux, vous pourriez être un modèle!" She'd announced as she had turned him to the mirror.

James had simply nodded and let his new small smile stretch across his lips. As he walked back to the hostel he felt strangely light. It was like his long hair and beard had been chains that he’d finally broken. He kept catching his reflection in shop windows, each time amazed anew at how different he looked. Even as the sky opened up and rain started to pour down on him, James couldn’t shake the strange and unfamiliar warm feeling filling his body.

He thought it might be happiness.

***

"I would put up with seven more months of staying in shitty hotels and burned out Hydra bases if it meant I could travel exclusively by private plane for the rest of my life.” Sam said as he sprawled across the plush sofa of Stark’s private airplane.

“What are you talking about? It’s not like we flew commercial during our search.” Steve protested. They’d mostly traveled by rental car but when they had flown it’d been on a Stark plane. Tony had claimed it would hurt his feelings if they didn’t.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Man, we used it what, four times? And there’s a difference between bleeding and passing out on a private airplane in between missions and lounging in luxury secure in the knowledge that a plush five-star hotel bed is waiting for you when you land.”

Steve supposed Sam had a point. Of course, the upside of passing out in a plane after a fight was that you were too distracted to think about the likelihood of said plane crashing. Steve would never admit it to his friends, but he still couldn’t shake the anxiety that came every time he was air born. He tried to think of something else. What were you supposed to think about when you were on vacation?

“I don’t actually think I’ve ever been on a vacation.” He admitted.

Sam sat up a bit straighter in his chair.

“What, like ever?”

Steve shook his head.

“We were too poor when I was growing up _and_ I was too sick. Once I got the serum all I did was tour until finally I got to the front and then, well, you know…” when he said it all out loud it was actually kind of depressing.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to travel, Bucky and I had always plan-“ Steve cut himself off before his mind traveled down that particular route. Bucky had always talked about traveling, about all of the places the two of them would go see together.

“Huh, I guess I knew all that but hadn’t really thought about it.” Sam cut into Steve’s thoughts, gracefully taking over the conversation and steering it to a more positive topic.

“So this is your first vacation? I get to be Captain America’s guide to vacationing?” Sam sounded way too excited at the prospect.

“I guess so,” Steve shrugged.

“Okay. Well I’ve put together my list of must see places, what’s on yours?” Sam pulled out a small leather notebook and flipped through it until he got to a page filled with text. Steve raised an eyebrow, but Sam just grinned.

“You gotta be prepared, who knows when I’ll get a chance to come back to Paris and be a tourist?”

He had a point. Steve had only been to Paris one other time and he could hardly count 35 hours of hiding, being shot at, being captured, and escaping in a fiery explosion a true tour of Paris.

"I guess I'd like to see the Museum of Modern Art and check out the Louvre." Steve said after giving it some thought.

Sam nodded, "I’ve already got our tickets for both, we've got all day tomorrow at the Louvre and then the next will be at the Museum of Modern Art."

Steve felt a little more excited about the forced vacation after that.

The deboarding process was easy. Sam and Steve were met on the tarmac by a private car and taken directly to their hotel. They didn’t even have to wait in the lobby to check in, the clerk just smiled, handed them their hotel keys and waved them on to the elevator.

"This is the life." Sam sighed as he stepped off of the elevator and directly into the penthouse suite of the hotel. Apparently, whichever Stark minion had taken care of their travel plans had booked the entire floor of the fanciest hotel they could find. The whole place was ultra modern and clearly insanely expensive. It consisted of three guest rooms, each with its own private bathroom and king sized bed, a formal dining room, living room, entertainment room, and a massive kitchen.

"What is with Stark and renting entire floors?" Steve asked wryly. He really should be used to over the top lifestyle that Tony lived and, by association, made his teammates partake in, but it still made him a bit nervous to be around this much glitz. What was the point of having all of this space for just two people?

Sam had no such qualms.

"I'm never leaving." He yelled over his shoulder as he raced to check out the huge TV that took up most of the wall of the entertainment room.

Steve ignored him and walked down the hallway to grab one of the bedrooms. He dropped his backpack on an overstuffed armchair next to the bed and debated whether he should unpack. He decided against it. Years in the army had taught him to be ready to move out at a moments notice.

When he returned to the living area Sam sat at the kitchen island with a map and two different guidebooks spread out across the marble counter.

"Okay, so rule of thumb is to stay up until 10 pm of the place you’re in to beat back jet lag. That gives us five hours to go do things. Now I know you're probably more of the "let's explore on our own type" but I think we should do some sort of tour first just to get out bearings. We could do a hop off hop on bus tour or a walking tour, which sounds good?" Sam's eyes glowed maniacally when he looked up.

"I'm fine with either." Even if he’d had a preference, Steve knew better than to muck up whatever grand vacation plan Sam clearly had going on.

"Hop on hop off bus tour it is! We get to see way more that way and it looks like it might rain. Okay, they do a pick up in 30 minutes outside the hotel, we pay when we get on. I'm going to go change and get money. We gotta get moving we are missing PARIS! Paris Steve!" He shouted over his shoulder as he grabbed his bags and ran into his room.

Steve didn’t know how to react to that.

He didn't think he'd ever seen Sam this excited before. In that moment, he vowed that he wouldn’t ruin this trip for Sam. He owed Sam so much and if Sam wanted to go on a weird bus tour or hell one of those segway things then Steve decided he’d be right there next to him.

***

An hour later found them both on a red double decker bus. Sam had a guidebook open and was alternating between gazing up at the tour guide in rapture and reading more from his book after the guide was finished discussing a particular stop.

At first Steve had sat ramrod straight, giving the guide his undivided attention. But as the tour continued he began to relax. Around him all sorts of people were listening, talking, or just staring out the window at the sites. The tour guide didn’t seem to mind any of it so Steve slowly let his attention wander outside.

It had begun to rain and the streets were quickly emptying out as locals and tourists both sought refuge from the deluge.

The bus had just turned back towards Sam and Steve’s hotel and was waiting at a stoplight when Steve saw him.

He stood hunched in the rain waiting at the crosswalk. His dark hair was soaked and much shorter than the last time Steve had seen him. Squinting through the rain across the street, Bucky's icy blue eyes suddenly looked up and, for a second, Steve met Bucky's gaze.

Steve bolted out of his seat. He didn’t think, he just dived over Sam and for the door.

“Monsieur! Monsieur, please this is not a stop you must sit down immediately.” The tour guide squawked.

Steve didn’t give a shit.

He wanted off that bus. He wanted to chase Bucky down and tackled him to the street and wrap him in his arms and never let him out of his sight again.

He wanted-

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Sam was at his side now, pulling him gently back from the door as the rest of the tour group gaped.

“Sam, Sam it’s him!” He hissed, gesturing wildly out of the window to the crosswalk.

“Steve man, there’s no one there…” Sam’s voice was deliberately gentle. It was his “you are acting like a maniac and I’m going to try not to set you off any further” voice.

“What are you talking about, he’s right th-“ Steve turned back to look out the window but Sam was right, there was no one there.

The walk sign was still red, the rest of the pedestrians were still waiting for the light, but Bucky wasn’t there.

Steve wanted to scream, he wanted to rip this bus apart and then rip all of the buildings on the street down.

Instead, he took three deep breaths and sent a weak smile to the tour guide as he let Sam lead him back to his seat.

“Sorry folks, motion sickness, you know how it is.” Sam flashed an easy smile around and the tour guide gave a stiff smile in return.

Ahead of them the light turned green and the bus started off again.

Once the guide resumed his tour Sam leaned over to Steve. “Hey, you okay man?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just thought…” He didn't need to look over at Sam to know what expression his friend was wearing. He felt terrible about, it was bad enough that he had ruined Sam’s tour, but now Sam was going to spend the rest of the trip worrying about Steve’s sanity.

The odds that he and Bucky were both in Paris at the exact same time were laughably improbably.

 _But... it was still within the realm of possibility, wasn't it?_ A small voice whispered in the back of his head.

If Steve could survive 70 years frozen, if gods like Thor could walk the earth, then couldn't Bucky be here, now?

"It's been a long day. Let's hit the hay early tonight okay?" Sam said, leaning in and giving Steve’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe he was seeing things. Despite the very strong possibility that what he’d just seen was a hallucination, Steve knew he’d never stop looking for the real thing. The truth was, he’d do anything, _anything_ to find Bucky. Steve would follow Bucky to ends of the earth.


	4. Lonesome Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this one was a bit of a beast to write. I had to split this chapter a bit because it got so long so it’s a little light on Steve’s POV. Also, quick warning that there is some violence in this chapter, nothing too graphic (I think) but it's there.

“I been dreaming again of a lonesome world

Where I'm lost and I'm on my own

What am I destined to be?

It's a mystery baby. Just please don't leave me alone."

***

James had seen a ghost.

One moment he’d been enjoying the feel of the cold rain on his face and the next he’d looked up across the street and into Steve's blue eyes. Even when he’d still been more asset than man he could remember how those eyes had captivated him. At the time, seeing them had filled him with a longing he hadn’t been able to name. Now, they filled him with panic.

He wanted to run away from the wild emotions filling him. How did anyone feel so much without exploding? Without loosing themselves?

So he ran.

The rain stung his face as he sprinted through the drenched Parisian streets. Between the setting sun and the overcast sky the city felt dark and empty. On and on he ran with just the sound of his breathing to keep him company.

 _It wasn’t a ghost._ A reasonable voice in his head whispered. He hadn’t known that he’d had any reasonable voices left.

 _How can it be a ghost if Steve is alive?_   But that only sparked further panic.

Could Steve be dead? He would have heard if Captain America had died, right?

The terrifying thought was enough to bring his mad dash to a full stop. His stomach clenched and his hands trembled. The feeling was familiar to him, but it took him a few moments to know why. It was fear, fear that James couldn't save Steve. That Steve would die.

 _"Promise me we'll go to all of them Buck.”_ Was fear the reason he’d made such an impossible promise to Steve all those years ago?

A sharp pain began to build behind his eyes. Around him the drenched Parisian streets blurred and his vision began to fuzz out on the edges. He needed to get somewhere safe, but he didn’t know where he was. Taking deep breaths, he dug around in his pockets until he found the map Kale had given him. The paper was soggy with holes appearing on the crease lines, but by comparing it to the street sign closest he managed to get his bearings. He clenched his teeth against the pain building in his head. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other and slowly trudged back to the hostel.

The hostel common area was packed with people when he finally stumbled through the door. Their laughter grated on his too sensitive ears, the crush of people made him feel claustrophobic. He ignored them all, ignored the nauseous sensation building in his stomach, and hurried back to his room.

Once inside he checked that his traps were still in place, ignoring the headache a little longer until he could be sure that the space was uncompromised. A tendril of anxiety slowly unwound from his belly when he found that everything was as he left it. He pulled off his muddy boots, threw his soaking coat and backpack on the floor, and collapsed on the bed.

His mind wandered as his head pounded on. He could feel something deep inside of his brain pushing its way forward. He imagined it scratching through his grey matter, scraping his brain stem as it forced itself out. It felt like hours before it finally emerged, but all of a sudden he was back in that tiny room from his dream.

_Across the poorly lit room the frail blond boy leaned forward from his bed, grimy paper in hand. Bucky leaned forward to take it, gently pushing Steve back down into the pile of blankets as he did._

_“Jesus Stevie, if you don’t stop moving around it will just get worse. Your ma will be furious with me if she comes back and see you moved around.”_

_Bucky set the grimy paper aside and stood. He ignored Steve’s grumblings as he tucked him back in, pulling the covers up to Steve’s eyes._

_“Aw come on Buck, I’ll beat this one just like I did the last one, and the one before.” The boy’s words were confident, but Bucky could see the fear that flickered in those blue eyes. It was a fear that lived inside of Bucky too. What would he do without Steve?_

_“I know you will Steve, but not without rest.” When Steve opened his mouth to protest Bucky cut him off, “Now settle down and I’ll take a look at our list. I gotta start planning now if we’re gonna go see all of them once you’re feeling better.” A huge grin spread across Steve’s flushed face and he finally lay still._

_Bucky looked down at the grimy page in his hands. It had been pulled from one of Steve’s old sketchbooks. The new writing was only the latest in a long line of doodles and notes that had been jotted down. On the top of the paper was the name “Buck and Steve’s Places to Tour.” Paris was listed first and right below it, Rome._

_The third city was blurry and as Bucky squinted harder the letters started to run off the page. Around him the world dissolved._

A crash of thunder shook the window and James fell out of his hostel bed. He lay on the ground, panting heavily, and listened to the storm outside. Holy shit. He’d remembered the next part.

Holy shit.

James knew, he _knew_ , there was more he was missing. But now he knew where to find it.

Rome.

***

Long after Steve had bid Sam goodnight he lay in bed reviewing what he’d seen. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it hadn’t been a hallucination.

Why would he hallucinate a short haired Bucky?

He took out his phone and typed out a short message to Nat.

**Steve: I’m not loosing it. I know what I saw. I’m not saying I haven’t hallucinated him before because, well, I have, but never like this. Can you please, please take a closer look at Paris for me? See if there’s anything there?**

He fidgeted while he waited for her response. It came a few minutes later.

**Nat: I’m on it.**

But even with Nat on the case, Steve slept poorly. What dreams he had were scattered and left him feeling sick and disjointed.

In one he and Bucky were charging across a war torn field. All around them were the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Ahead of them Schmidt stood, growing taller and taller, his red face pulsating. Besides Steve, Bucky began to stumble. He was falling further and further behind and when Steve turned to look for him all he saw was a field full of bodies.

Steve was alone.

In the next dream Steve sat in a tiny rowboat, around him rose large icebergs, his breath left puffs in the air and his body was frozen. Tied next to his boat was an even smaller one. Bucky sat hunched inside of it, his hair was short on the sides and long on top, his coat was modern, but his eyes… his eyes were the blank icy blue of the Winter Soldier.

The waves got bigger and bigger and with each one the thin rope holding the two boats together frayed. Steve tried to gesture at Bucky to get inside Steve’s boat. But he was frozen and Bucky just continued to stare blankly, waiting for a command.

A particularly large wave crashed into them and the sea spray momentarily blinded Steve. Blinking away the seawater, Steve looked besides him to find no sign of the boat, or of Bucky.

He was alone again.

In all of his dreams he was alone.

***

The first thing James did when he woke up the next morning was pack his bag and head downstairs to the communal computer.

He opened the browser and quickly googled “Is Captain America dead?”

He knew it was foolish, he would know if Steve was dead. He would _know_.

But still…

When no hysterical headlines popped up he felt the last of his anxiety from the previous night drain away. Steve was alive and, according to some tabloid named _People_ , America’s most eligible bachelor.

He growled at the headline.

Then he read the article, and growled some more. He couldn’t put into words quite why he didn’t like it, but it was clear the reporter had never even talked to Steve. Granted, James didn’t have the best memory, but he was certain that Steve wasn’t a “paragon of politeness.”

Steve was a punk. Hell, Steve was a raging asshole at times.

Twenty minutes later and James’ growling had scared away the small line that had been forming behind him. With one last snarl at a description of Steve as “one of the most handsome men in America,” he wrenched his attention away from trashy gossip rags and on to things he actually needed to do, like book his next flight.

He had more than enough Hydra-funded VISA gift cards to pay for it. But to his disappointment, the next flight with an open seat wasn’t for two more days.

Two days to sit in his room.

“Hey James, just the guy I was looking for!” A knife found its way into James’ hand and it took considerable effort not to whirl around and fling it at the speaker. He was in a hostel with normal people. Normal people did not throw knives at people because they were startled.

Slowly turning, James let himself relax when he saw Kale approaching. He slipped the knife back up into the sheath on his wrist and gave Kale one of his small smiles.

“Wow! Look at you man! Your hair looks super dope. Did my lady treat you right or what?” Kale smiled possibly the largest grin James had seen yet as he took in James’ new appearance. James felt like ducking his head and staring at his feet. A burning feeling filled his cheeks.

“Yeah thanks,” he ran a hand over his scalp, delighting in the soft feel of the longer hair on top. “She did a good job.” He tried out another smile and found that he didn’t have to think so much this time to get his face to cooperate.

“Definitely, she’s a one of a kind lady. But that’s not why I was looking for you. I realized I completely spaced the other day during check in. I forgot to tell you about the tours this week. There’s one this morning that I’m leading, and another to the Eiffel Tower tonight. The one this morning is just a general walking tour but we hit all of the big downtown spots and do lunch together. You want to come?” Kale looked excitedly at James, waiting for his response.

His first instinct was to say no. He barely knew how to interact with Kale, let alone a group of complete strangers. But what else was he going to do?

As the Winter Soldier he would have sat in his room and stared blankly at the wall until he it was time for his mission. But he wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore. He was James, and James liked to see things and go outside for walks. James got new haircuts and took trips across the world and bought books for fun.

“Yes, I’ll go.” His voice sounded far more confident than he felt.

“Right on man!” Kale was beaming now.

“We’ll meet here in the lobby in 30 minutes. Wear your walking shoes.”

With a wink, Kale headed back to the front desk.

James decided that once he’d perfected smiling he would move on to winking.

At the end of the morning he returned to the hostel emotionally exhausted from interacting with so many strangers, but feeling proud. He hadn’t had a panic attack, no one had asked why he was wearing gloves and long sleeves in the nice weather, and he’d even made some small talk with a few American students. When they’d asked where he was from he’d found himself saying Brooklyn, much to their envy. Apparently, it was now one of the trendier places to live.

He wondered what Steve thought about that.

He was just starting to climb the steps back up to his room when Kale waved him over to the front desk. “What’d you think of the tour man? It looked like you enjoyed it.”

“Yeah, you did a good job as the guide.” Kale grinned delightedly.

“Well, if you’re interested we have another trip going to the Eiffel Tower tonight. You’d have to pay for the admission but it’s worth it, trust me. You in or what?”

James knew that it was Kale’s job to make people feel welcome, but he thought it was odd that the man made such a point to specifically invite him. Kale hadn't asked any of the other people in the morning group to join the Eiffel Tower tour.

“Why are you being so nice?”

Kale laughed and shrugged, oblivious to the suspicious note that had crawled into James’ voice.

“I can’t just be nice?” At James’ blank expression Kale sighed and began to shift awkwardly.

“Alright you want the truth?” Kale looked around and leaned across the hostel counter, his face serious.

James mentally reviewed his exits and palmed two of his ceramic knives.

“I do like you man. But, the truth is that, well, I read auras man.”

_What?_

“What?” James repeated back dumbly.

“Yeah man, you know, every person generates their own energy field and I can see them. And yours man, wow, I’ve never seen anything like it but it’s clear you need some good vibes and some good times sent your way so, well, I want to help in any way I can.”

James had no idea what to say. “Okay… thank you?”

Was that what you said in response to something like this?

“Don’t mention it, man. But like, seriously, though keep it on the down low. Once people know you can see auras they never leave you alone.”

James nodded, still at a loss.

“So you in for the Eiffel Tower tonight then?”

James nodded again.

“Right on man, I’ll see you then.”

James found himself nodding a third time and decided it was time to leave before his head fell off. Once back in the safety of his room he let himself wonder just how fucked up an aura had to be to draw comments from near strangers. It was probably better not to know.

***

If Sam was worried about Steve’s mental health after last night he didn’t show it. By the time Steve stumbled into the kitchen Sam was already dressed and on his second cup of coffee, clearly impervious to jet leg.

“You ready to hit the Louvre?” He asked, beaming at Steve’s messy hair and the pillow marks on his face.

Steve’s troubled dreams had left him tired and grouchy. But he pushed those feelings down, snagged the cup of coffee that Sam had been generous enough to pour him, and turned around to go get dressed.

The hotel was close enough to the museum that they could walk there and Steve was glad for it. The sun was shining, the streets were clean from last night’s storm, and as Steve took in his surroundings in he felt his grumpiness slowly fade.

By the time they got to the Louvre he didn’t feel grumpy at all. In fact, he actually felt excited.

Steve would never tell any of his friends this, but it was pretty rare for him to feel excited these days.

Surprised? Confused? Annoyed? All yes.

Genuinely excited? No.

“Tony’s minion booked a private tour for us.” Sam explained as he led the way around the large line that had already formed outside the glass pyramid.

Pulling his cap down a little lower, Steve followed while Sam presented their tickets at a smaller side entrance and the two of them were quickly ushered through a metal detector and into the museum. Steve’s mouth dropped open as they walked further into the building. Above them the glass pyramid stretched toward the sky, while below hallways branched in all directions, each one leading to a different part of the museum.

“Where do we even start?” Steve asked in awe.

Sam just laughed and clapped him on the back.

“Do I plan a great vacation or what?”

Sam did indeed plan great vacations if their first full day was anything to go by. The private guide had been fantastic, and together the three of them had walked through what felt like miles of museum. Everywhere Steve had turned there had priceless works of art or historical artifacts. He felt like a little kid again running from masterpiece to masterpiece and trying his best to metaphorically gorge himself on all of the beauty around him.

The artwork had put him in such a good mood that Steve hadn’t even minded when a group of American tourists had asked to take a picture of him and Sam in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. He’d even posed dramatically for the shot.

A text from Tony shortly afterwards informed both Sam and Steve that the picture was now trending on Twitter.

By the time the museum closed, Steve felt pleasantly tired and bursting with artistic energy. He wanted to start sketching immediately. His hand itched for a pencil to get started. He was mentally mapping out what piece to sketch first when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was a text from Nat.

**Nat: Found something. A low level Hydra agent flew into Charles de Gaulle this morning. Checked security footage for the last week and we have a hit on Barnes. He flew in two days ago. Will send more intel as I get it.**

Steve stopped smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk and read the text again. He felt hot and cold all over. His heart was pounding and for the first time since coming off ice he felt like he couldn’t quiet get enough air in his lungs.

“Hey, Steve you okay?” Sam asked.

Bucky was here. He was _here_.

Steve was dimly aware that besides him Sam had pulled out his own phone to read a text.

“Oh shit,” said Sam. “Well, there goes my vacation.”

***

James couldn’t stop looking out over the sparkling lights of the city below him. He peered through the chain link fence that bordered the observation platform, enjoying the feel of the wind on his short hair.

In between the two tours today he had tracked down a guidebook for Rome and plotted his course. He had his ticket booked, he had his guidebook, and he’d even circled a few places in the book that sounded interesting.

He was getting pretty good at this whole tourist thing.

The group from the hostel had been the last ones allowed up to the top of the Eiffel Tower for the evening. With only a handful of other people milling around James could almost pretend he was up here alone. He closed his eyes and for a few seconds just enjoyed the feeling of the cool wind on his face.

His left arm detected the danger before the rest of him.

With a tiny whirring noise he felt it recalibrate just as the EMP went off and the lights went out all around him.

A hard object pressed into his gut and even has he whirled around to incapacitate his assailant James heard the ten words he feared above all else.

He stiffened as the words took hold. He struggled as James was pushed deep into his subconscious and the Winter Soldier rose to the fore.

Besides him the handler spoke. “It was hard to find you Asset, but perhaps not as hard as you had hoped it would be.”

The soldier took stock of the handler, logging it in case he needed it for his debrief.

Height: 5’6

Weight: Approximately 180 lbs.

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Hazel

“You know what your mistake was?” The handler asked.

“You forgot that even without any electronic or hard files of our passport systems there is always the human memory. Of course, memory has never been your strong suit has it?” The handler laughed and the soldier felt a tinge of something. He did not waste time trying to identify it.

He ignored the soft voice screaming inside of his head.

“Now turn around and act surprised by the power outage. Greet me as though we are friends in a mildly alarming situation.”

The man pocketed his gun and slung an arm around the soldier’s shoulders. The voice in the back of the soldier’s head grew louder, a pain behind his eyes began to build and he could almost make out the words being screamed.

“James, man we gotta go. Security is freaking out.” A man with long blond hair approached them.

A quick assessment showed no signs of threat.

The soldier relaxed and stood at attention beside the handler, waiting for his next directive.

“James? You okay man? You look kinda… out of whack.” The blond man was peering at the soldier as is he knew him, as if he knew him and was worried about him.

Another tinge of something filled the soldier’s stomach.

But the handler spoke again before the soldier could fully assess the feeling. “Kill them.”

The handler spoke in Russian, grinning as he gestured to the handful of people now filing out of an emergency exit.

The soldier’s hand reached for the gun across his shoulders and found it was missing. In its place was the worn backpack that he had found at the cabin. That he had brought with him here.

The cabin.

The lake.

A blond haired boy frowning.

In front of him a different blond frowned, “What’s this guy’s deal James?”

“Kill them.” The handler barked again.

The soldier hesitated.

He knew he needed to obey; it was his purpose, his only purpose.

It would be so easy, _so easy_ to let the words the agent was shouting sink into his consciousness and obey. He could relax, he could let someone else take over, no more decisions to make, no more responsibilities...

No more cabin to fix.

No more conversations with strange but kind civilians like the blond man.

No more hope that one day, maybe he’d find the rest of his memory. That he’d understand who he had been and what Steve had meant to him.

His ears roared, his head felt like it was about to split in two, and the Winter Soldier stumbled to the ground.

Behind him the handler had pulled his gun out and was now pointing it right at the blond man, at Kale.

To his side Kale was yelling for everyone to run.

“Get out!” James snarled at Kale and, in a blur of movement, flipped back up to his feet. He kicked the gun out of the Hydra agent’s hand and punched him in the face.

The agent flew across the observation platform, smashing into the metal fencing.

Kale stood wide-eyed, frozen to the spot. James had seen that look before, it was shear terror, a panic that left you unable to move.

“Kale, get out and call the police. Get everyone to safety.” He knew his voice was cold and hard, but it broke the shocked spell Kale was under. In a daze, Kale nodded and sprinted down the emergency exit staircase after the crowd.

It was just James and the Hydra agent now.

He stalked down the platform and toward the bleeding man. The handler’s eyes grew wide and he tried to scramble up as James drew closer.

In vain he wrestled something out of his pocket and tried to pop it in his mouth.

In a burst of speed James grabbed the Hydra agent’s hand with his metal one and crushed it. The man screamed as every tiny bone shattered, the cyanide pill reduced to powder inside of the pulpy remains.

The full weight of the situation seemed to dawn on the Hydra agent as James hauled him up by his neck and slammed him against the metal grating. The man began to blubber.

James waited until some of the sobbing had subsided.

“How did you locate me?” He asked.

The ice in James’ voice was enough to make the man start sobbing all over again.

By now the French police and DGSI were surely on their way, but James was in no hurry. He needed to find out how he had been followed. He knew it couldn’t have been from an errant tracker embedded inside of him. He had cut them all out before he’d left D.C.

“Th-the passports! I was the one who made them. I remember them all even though the records got destroyed. I’ve been tracking their names, looking for other Hydra agents and when I saw it was you on the airport security footage I thought if I just brought you back in—“

“Does anyone else know about the passports?”

“N-no, there’s no one left from my division.”

“And the words?” When the man looked at him blankly James pushed him further back into the metal grating. The fencing creaked ominously.

“The activation words?” He repeated. The man’s face was turning white; he was starting to go into shock.

“I—ah – I was there in D.C. when SHIELD fell, I found one of your- the- handlers and before he died…”

The agent before him was an opportunist. A stupid man who thought he’d change his luck with a harebrained scheme to take down the Winter Soldier.

Steve would probably have let him go.

But James wasn’t Steve. 

He threw the man down onto the floor and held him in place with a well-placed boot.

Weaving the fingers of his left hand into the metal fencing he pulled. With a screech of metal and a groan of concrete James ripped a section of the fencing completely off of the platform. He threw it behind him.

The Hydra agent whimpered.

But any mercy James might have had was long gone.

With the sound of sirens floating up from the streets below, James picked up the man and threw him off the side of the tower.

He didn’t watch the man fall. But he did listen to the scream all the way down.


	5. In the Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! I’ve been trying to post a new chapter every other week but failed miserably due to Halloween and crazy times at work. Quick note, while I know that there are stairs all the way up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I have no clue whether they are used as an emergency exit... Let’s all just pretend that they do. Hope you enjoy!

“You've been gone for a long long time

You've been in the wind, you've been on my mind

You are the purest soul I've ever known in my life

Take your time, let the rivers guide you in

You know where you can find me again

I'll be waiting here 'til the stars fall out of the sky”

***

A call from Natasha came an hour later, just as Sam and Steve were starting to eat. After her initial text Sam had graciously offered to spend the rest of the night “Bucky hunting,” but Steve had turned him down. They had gone off half-cocked before and it had left them nowhere. Instead they had headed back to the hotel where, by unspoken agreement, the two of them had packed their things and then ordered room service while they waited for Nat to send more information.

When the call came Steve almost dropped his phone in his scramble to answer it.

“Nat? Did you-“ She cut him off.

"Get to the Eiffel Tower _now_." The steel in her voice effectively squashed any questions he might have had.

Nat rattled off how to get there from the hotel. She didn't bother with the metro; they both knew he'd be much faster running. Steve hung up and dashed for the door, pausing just long enough to shout “Bucky’s at the Eiffel Tower, I’ll meet you there,” over his shoulder before charging out.

Sam looked down at his half eaten meal and sighed.

“Swear to god sometimes I feel like I’m in some sort of romcom. I’m the levelheaded friend aren’t I? The one that’s always giving solid advice that the hero ignores to go hold a boom box over his head or some shit. Riley, did you ever think I’d be the rational one?” Sam peered skywards and when no response was forthcoming he nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” Then he pulled out his phone and called down to the front desk to order a taxi like a normal human.

***

It took Steve less than five minutes to get from his hotel to the Eiffel Tower. But even that seemed like too long.

All of the lights in the surrounding block were out. The only illumination came from the police cars and ambulances gathered around the base and a helicopter spotlight that was trained on the very top of the Tower. He felt his heart jump into his throat.

Where was Bucky?

Steve pushed past the crowds until he got to a line of police tape. He ducked under it and marched straight toward a knot of officers.

Someone grabbed his arm and it took all of his control not to hurl the officer across the lawn.

“Monsieur, ceci est une scène de crime que vous devez laisser."

Steve turned fully towards the man and the officer shrunk back a little as he recognized who he was talking to.

“Oh, pardon, Captain America I did not…” Steve shook off the other man’s hand and continued pushing his way forward. Whether it was because the other officers recognized him or because his face looked like he would rip apart anyone who tried to stop him, he got to the front of the little crowd with no other delays.

A body lay on the grass.

Well, less of a body and more of a splatter.

Steve felt the tension drain out of him. Messy though the body was, he knew it wasn’t Bucky.

But if the man wasn’t Bucky and Nat had urged Steve to come here then Buck must have had something to do with the body. Steve felt his heart sink.

“Monsieur Rogers, I’m afraid you cannot be here.” One of the higher-ups came striding over. Judging by her small frown she was unimpressed by both Steve’s credentials and his fame. She also looked a little disgusted by her starry eyed colleagues.

“This is an investigation and we need everyone unrelated to the event out of the crime scene.” She looked more than willing to throw him out.

“Ma’am, I understand, however I have reason to believe that this incident has something to do with Hydra.”

It was _kind of_ true. 

"Nevertheless, I must ask you to leave until you have the proper clearance."

“Bouchet!” A large man called out to the woman and strode over to the two of them. He did not look happy.

"We just got a call, the Captain is okay to be here. His associate, Sam Wilson, will be arriving shortly as well so make sure he is let in.” 

The man switched to French and fired off some more rapid orders. Steve didn’t have to speak French to know that the woman, Bouchet, was being reprimanded.

“No, no, it’s fine.” He cut the man off, “She was doing her job and frankly, I respect her for sticking to her guns.”

He flashed a smile at both of them and then turned back to the body.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Not yet,” Bouchet said stiffly.

Her commanding officer gave her a small frown and waved her away before turning to Steve.

“Our forensics team has found no ID. But a report of a man waving a gun at the top of the Tower was called in thirty minutes ago. One of the witnesses claims a member of his tour group tried to subdue the man, but no one has seen him either. The body could be either one of them. We’ve sent up a squad up to the top but it will take them a little bit of time to climb up the Tower.”

Steve barely heard the last part he was too busy charging toward the Tower staircase.

***

James had lost time.

One minute he was listening to the Hydra agent scream and the next he found himself in a fairly roomy air duct just above the emergency exit.

He could hear people huffing and puffing their way up the Tower staircase, almost certainly police, as well as the rhythmic chop-chop-chop of a helicopter hovering outside.

He supposed he should be glad that his brain had navigated his body off of the platform, back inside, and into safety as opposed to just falling off the side of the Tower or lying out in the open where anyone could find him.

Of course, it apparently wasn’t too hard to find him anyway if that fucking Hyrda agent had.

James clenched his fists and bit down hard on his tongue to keep from screaming in frustration and punching the walls around him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so, so _furious._ He was furious with himself for not thinking about the damn passports, for letting his guard down. He had gotten too comfortable; he’d let himself think that because he hadn’t been found so far that Hydra had given up on him. 

They would never give up on finding him.

He could almost hear the screaming of his handlers’ commands to never be distracted, to never take his mind off of his mission.

Their voices filled his head and James pulled at his hair to try and get them out.

He was so stupid.

Why had he ever thought that he could navigate this trip, this world, on his own?

A new sound brought James’ thoughts to a halt.

Someone else was running up the staircase below, a much faster, much more familiar set of footsteps.

They quickly caught up with the police still trying to make their way up to the top. For a moment all of the footsteps stopped and then the lone pair resumed their journey, leaving the police behind. The person’s pace slowed once they drew to the top of the staircase.

James knew who it was before Steve even opened his mouth.

On the bright side, he hadn’t been hallucinating yesterday. Hooray.

On the not so bright side, Steve was in Paris. Steve was _here_ and James had no idea what to do.

The bastard wasn’t even panting.

"Buck?" Steve called out into the quiet.

James’ heart leapt at the sound of that voice. He wondered how close Steve would have to be before he heard James’ heart trying to jump out of his chest.

"You in here Bucky?" Steve’s voice echoed slightly as he stepped further into the large circular room. He paused and James heard him exhale deeply.

“Bucky, I know you’re in here somewhere. Hell, you’re probably in the air ducts or something...” Steve took another deep breath.

"Bucky, come back with me. Come home to New York." Steve’s voice was soft and so sad that James felt something inside of him melt a little bit. It was tempting, so tempting. He could just pop out of this air duct and let Steve take him home, let Steve take care of him, wrap himself around Steve and never let go.

Steve was a much better option than Hydra. Steve was the best option.

But James knew he couldn’t go back, not yet. 

He’d never find the rest of the memory if he went with Steve. Sure, Steve could probably tell James all about their harebrained scheme to travel the world together, but that wouldn’t be the same. James wouldn’t have it for _himself_. He wouldn’t know why it was so important to Bucky.

James needed to find out who he was. And right now he needed to do that alone.

But he couldn’t let Steve just sit out there in the dark either.

It was a risk. Giving Steve any sort of sign of his location could easily lead to his discovery. Steve could just drag him home, James knew he wouldn't fight Steve. 

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly against the decades of training he was breaking and whispered, "Not yet.”

And then he waited, hoping that his instinct to trust Steve hadn’t been wrong.

***

The voice came from above and a little to his right.

It was rough, as if the speaker hadn't used it in ages.

But it reminded Steve of Brooklyn and curling up with Bucky when Steve had still been small and always, always cold. The voice made him think of huddling together around a tiny fire while all around them the other Howlies slept.

The voice made him feel like he was finally home.

Bucky was in the air ducts and it would easy to find him. Steve had a lot of practice with finding people in air ducts these days. He could find Bucky, knock him out of the ceiling, wrap him up in a huge hug and then carry him all the way to Stark's jet and the safety of the Tower.

But he didn’t.

Bucky's words had frozen him in place; the tone so fragile and so uncertain that Steve knew if he pushed right now Bucky would give in and come home with him. But he wouldn’t be coming home for himself; he’d be coming home because Steve had made him, had ignored Bucky’s wishes in favor of his own.

Steve wanted Bucky to come home with him more than he’d ever wanted anything before in his life. But he wouldn’t become another handler and he wouldn’t take away Bucky’s choice.

He took a few deep breaths and ignored how watery his eyes had gotten.

“Okay…. Okay then. I’ll leave you alone for now but I’m going to leave my phone number on a postcard and you call if you need anything. You hear me? _Anything_.”

There was no response, but Steve hadn’t truly expected one. He grabbed a postcard and souvenir pen from one of the kiosks and jotted down his number. It felt weird to be so close to Bucky, to the goal he’d been chasing for so long, only to let him go. It felt weird to only leave him with a number. He pulled at the chain around his neck and placed that on top of the postcard as well.

“I told the police to wait for my word… I’m going to tell them there’s no one up here. But they’ll probably still search for you, you might be here awhile.”

Still nothing.

“I’m gonna get going now but uh- Buck? I uh- take care of yourself okay? Maybe you could send me a text every once in a while? And Bucky… please don’t be away too long.”

Steve was almost outside when he heard it.

It was just a whisper of a response, but it made Steve felt like he could fly.

“I will Stevie, I promise.”

Steve practically skipped down the long Tower staircase. Bucky had said not yet.

Yet.

As in someday, as in he would come home with Steve eventually. Better yet, he’d promised to send him texts every once in while. Was it what Steve wanted? No.

What Steve wanted was to wrap Bucky up in a blanket and curl up around him and protect him from anything that ever wanted to hurt him. But he would take this. He would take this a million times over. Bucky was alive and functioning.

Halfway down the stairs he found the troop of officers; all of them were still catching their breaths. Steve tamped down on his smile while he delivered the news that no one else was up there.

“The tourist who fought him off must have run out with the crowd.” He said in his best Captain America voice. It was so steeped in authority that even the officers who didn’t speak English nodded in agreement.

Steve couldn’t keep the smile off of his face long though. "Man why the hell are you smiling?” Sam asked when Steve finally exited the Tower and walked back towards the crime scene.

"I saw Bucky, Sam, well I heard him!" Steve was beaming.

Sam grabbed his arm and turned him away from the growing crowd of onlookers and reporters.

"Steve, was it him? Did he do this?” Sam hissed, gesturing at the body currently being removed from the lawn.

"I have no idea. And honestly, I don’t give a shit if it was. He saved bystanders Sam, he talked to me! He said he’d come home!” Sam was giving Steve that calm “you are a crazy person but you’re my friend so I’m nodding in an understanding way,” look.

“How do you know he saved bystanders?” Before Steve could answer Bouchet strode over to the two of them.

“Our officers are double-checking the observation room and platforms Captain, but it doesn’t look like there’s anyone up there. We think the tourist who intervened must have gotten lost in the confusion.” Steve nodded and threw Sam a triumphant look. Sam rolled his eyes.

“What about the guy on the lawn?” Sam asked her, sending a look at Steve.

“We found an eyewitness who was able to positively ID the man as the shooter," said Bouchet.

“Do you mind if we ask the witness a few questions?” Sam asked. “We have some intelligence that suggests the shooter has ties to Hydra.”

She sighed and nodded, “Fine, he is over there.”

She pointed at an ambulance where a young man sat, clutching a warming blanket around his shoulders.

The man looked tall, but skinny. His hair was blond and pulled back into a ponytail. Under the blanket he wore a tie-dye T-shirt.

“We got ourselves a hippy.” Sam muttered as they walked over.

Steve ignored him.

“Sir? Excuse us, I know you’ve already been interviewed by the police but we have a few more questions to ask you.”

The man jumped when he looked up at Steve and Steve braced himself for the usual, “Wow your Captain America!” routine.

“Oh wow man, your aura is just like James’!”

“Excuse me?” Steve asked, covering up Sam’s snort.

The man seemed to come to life, his eyes lighting up. “I mean, I thought James’ was gnarly but yours is, wow, you need some loving man.”

“What?” Steve all but shouted. 

“Do you know him?” The man continued.

“Know who?” Steve asked.

“James! Tall, built, his eyes are like an angry ice storm? Looks like he might murder you but is super cool once you talk with him? He’s staying at my hostel; he was on the tour with us when that psycho started waving that gun around. James was the one who took him out and gave us time to escape. He’s a hero man, but I can’t find him!” The man’s voice quickly became panicked.

Steve had frozen.

Bucky had been staying at a hostel? He’d willing gone on tours. Steve thought his face might crack in half with how wide he was smiling.

“He fought off the attacker?” Sam asked, smoothly stepping in when it became clear that the only thing Steve was capable of doing right now was beaming like an idiot.

“Yeah, it was so strange. All of a sudden the lights went off and the guards were yelling at everyone to evacuate but I didn’t see James anywhere. I saw him out on the observation deck still and there was this other guy with him and he kind of leaned in and he must have said something bad because James just kind of froze up. When he turned around his face just looked… well terrifying man like a robot or something.” The guy huddled in on himself a little bit at the thought before continuing.

“So then the guy starts yelling something, I think in Russian, and James just kind of freezes in place and then he fell over and the guy pulled a gun out and James, well, James like did this crazy flip and kicked it out of the way. He yelled at me to run so I did but now…”

“You did the right thing.” Sam reassured him. “You got everyone out and no one got hurt.”

The guy nodded. “Yeah well, I’d feel a lot better if I could find James and make sure he’s okay.”

“What’s your name?” Steve asked.

“Um, Kale, Kale Anderson.”

“Kale?” Steve couldn’t help but repeat. What kind of a name was Kale?

“Okay Kale, do you think you could take us back to your hostel? We’d like to take a look at James’ room.” Sam explained calmly, thank god he was here to operate normally.

“Well, I don’t know about that man. James didn’t do anything wrong, who are you guys even with?” Kale was eyeing them suspiciously now and Steve couldn’t blame him. 

“Seriously?” Sam asked, “That’s Captain America and I’m the Falcon.”

“Okay, but still, who are you guys with? Didn’t your company, like, explode?”

“It did,” Steve agreed, “But James is one of our friends and we’ve been trying to find him. He hasn’t been…well.” It was as close to the truth as Steve was willing to get. He just hoped it was enough to convince Kale to trust them; otherwise… well Steve would rip apart that hostel with his bare hands if he had to. He wanted to see if Bucky had left any clues about why he was suddenly traveling all over the place. And, if he was being honest, he was curious to see where Bucky had been staying.

Kale stared at the two of them and bit his lip. He looked them both over again as he thought it through. Then he sighed.

“Okay. I mean, Jesus you two must be close because honestly the auras you two have are crazy alike. You can't argue with auras man.”

Once the police and EMTs gave the all clear for Kale to leave the three of them started the slow walk back to the hostel. It was very enlightening.

Sam and Steve found out that not only had Bucky checked in two nights ago, but that he’d gotten a haircut and shave yesterday morning from Kale’s girlfriend.They also heard way to much about auras.

Steve apparently “needed to let himself heal, man” just like how James “needed to find himself again.”

Sam apparently had once of the healthiest and most soothing auras that Kale had ever seen. Sam was very smug about this.

Eventually they made it back to the hostel and up to Bucky’s room.

Steve was happy they'd convinced Kale to let them see Bucky's room, he didn't think anyone else would have been able to remove all of the booby traps that Buck had left behind. Whatever else he'd forgotten, Bucky clearly remembered his training. Besides the traps, the only thing Bucky had left was a faint scent on his pillow. Steve waited until Sam wasn't looking to press the pillow to his nose and inhale deeply. 

“So, where are we headed next then?” Sam asked once they had finally said their goodbyes to Kale.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked. He was still smiling even as they made the long trek back to their hotel.

“Well, we’re going after him, right? He escaped you up on the Tower?”

Steve shook his head.

“No, Sam, we’re not going after him. I promised you a vacation and we’re going to stick to it. Museum of Modern Art is later today, right?”

***

Long after Steve had left and the police had filed out, James slowly climbed down from his air duct. In their search the police had overlooked the small postcard on the kiosk counter and the dog tags that sat on top of it. James felt his hands shake as he reached out for the tags. Imprinted in the metal was the name: Steven G. Rogers. Without a second thought, James lifted the necklace over his head and put it on. The metal felt cool nestled against his skin, but it made him feel warm inside. Had the security cameras still been working they would have caught James Barnes wearing his first grin in decades.


	6. Time to Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A happy belated Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! This year I'm thankful for all of the kudos and comments from you guys. It's exactly what I need to keep going on this story. Especially during long chapters like this one that feature characters who don't want to conform with your original plotting (I'm looking at you Black Widow). I hope you guys enjoy it, I'm going to try to get the next one out faster.

"It's time to run, I hope you understand what I've done  
Run away for you, I'm gonna count the days 'til you make it through  
I did it all for you, I hope you live the life you want to  
My time is spent, baby please don't tell 'em just where I went."

***

James clasped the dog tags tightly in his right hand as he made his way down from the Eiffel Tower and snuck past the remaining officers patrolling the crime scene. The high from talking to Steve had burned off quickly, leaving fear and paranoia in its wake.

He kept his trail erratic, doubling and even tripling back through alleys and parks on his way to his final destination. He wouldn’t risk air travel so soon, not with the Hydra agent’s sneer burned so deeply into his memory, and he didn’t think he could handle the close quarters of a bus right now. A train though, a train meant private rooms and a faster trip than a bus.

He was thankful for the late hour when he finally made it to the train station. The building was almost completely deserted at this time of night, leaving only a few paltry security cameras to witness to his actions. He kept an eye on them as he used three different self-serve kiosks to buy three different train tickets, each going to different locations, under different aliases. Through out all of the transactions he made sure to keep a blank, exhausted look on his face, and pulled the hood of his new “J’Adore Paris” sweatshirt up tightly around his head.

He’d stolen new clothes from the Eiffel Tower kiosks, throwing out his backpack, shirt, and jacket in a series of different trashcans on his way over to the station. He didn’t miss the shirt or jacket, but throwing out the backpack had been hard. Particularly since none of the kiosks had sold a backpack large enough to hold all of his stuff. He’d been forced to make due with a medium pack bedazzled with a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower and a fanny pack that had “Paris is for Lovers” emblazoned across the front.

Terrible as his new outfit was, he comforted himself with the thought that it would ultimately help him blend in as a tourist.

James’ adrenaline slowly started to dissipated as he waited for his train to arrive. He felt hollowed out and, with nothing to distract him, his mind began to replay the night’s events on loop. Over and over again his felt the mind numbing fear of being trapped within his own body.

Finally, after what felt like hours, his train was called. The line to board was short and James soon found himself in the small private room he’d booked, watching Paris disappear outside of his window.

Outside the dark night was slowly giving way to the dawn. He breathed in and out and, for the first time in hours, he let himself relax a bit.

Just a bit though. If last night had taught him anything it was that he couldn’t afford to become complacent, he had to stay on his guard at all times. He would go to Rome and he would try to reclaim the rest of the memory, but no more tours, no more shopping or haircuts, no more talking to people.

 _Then why go at all?_ The mental voice sounded like Steve’s.

James scowled at the reminder that his head wasn’t normal. Normal people didn’t have different voices in their head.

"I can't afford to be vulnerable again." He responded, firmly cementing his status as a not normal person.

 _There is no living without being vulnerable, but that does not make you a victim. You were vulnerable on the Tower – but you still won._ The Steve voice pointed out.

Try as he might, James couldn’t think of a good rebuttal to that.

***

Despite their late night, Steve and Sam spent most of the next day at the Museum of Modern Art. They visited Notre Dame and walked along the Seine. They talked about work, about the art they saw, about Paris. They didn't talk about Bucky.

Sam knew they would have to talk about it eventually. But he had decided long ago that Steve was in desperate need of some happiness and from the way the guy had practically skipped all over Paris today, Steve was finally getting some.

Sam refused to be the one to burst that particular bubble. Even if someone should probably point out that just because Bucky had promised to return with Steve someday, it didn't actually mean he would. For god's sake who knew if the guy even remembered last night?

Sam believed it was in Steve's best interest to give him some time before they tackled that particular conversation.

Natasha had no such reservations.

Sam wasn’t even a little bit surprised to find the redhead sitting at their kitchen table sipping coffee and scrolling through her phone when they got in that evening.

“You want to tell me why you two are still here and Barnes is nowhere to be found?” Her voice was cool and disinterested, which meant she was pissed.

Steve sighed. “He didn’t do anything wrong Nat.”

“No?” She stopped scrolling and slowly turned to face them, one eyebrow perfectly arched.

“Killing someone isn’t wrong? I never thought I’d hear Steve Rogers say that.”

It wasn’t lost on either Sam or Steve that she had said “Steve Rogers” and not Captain America. They all knew Captain America had killed a lot of people; it was unavoidable in his line of work. But Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers would do anything to avoid that final, terrible solution.

“Killing a Hydra agent while said agent is trying to capture you and saving a group of tourists in the process is not wrong.” Steve’s voice was so hard it could have chipped rock.

Nat’s face remained still but after a few seconds of strained silence she gave a tight nod.

“Fine. In this instance the event is... understandable. That still doesn’t explain why Barnes isn’t on a plane back to the Tower right now.”

“Because he isn’t ready to come home yet.” Nat’s eyebrows drew down in a fierce scowl, all attempts at cool detachment disappearing.

“Steve. I know Barnes means a lot to you, I _know_ that, but he can’t be out on his own right now. You have no idea the amount of destruction he is capable of. He needs to be somewhere safe where he can get the help he needs, not wandering around Europe where anyone could take him or civilians could get hurt if he looses control.” Her tone was even and calm, which only succeeded in goading Steve's temper. He knew when he was being "handled" and he despised it.

Steve could feel his face heating up, his fists clenched as his temper got the best of him. He didn’t raise his voice, but it shook with anger as he spoke.

“You don’t know him Nat. None of you know him like I do. I’m not delusional, I’m not blind. I know he's not the Buck I grew up with, but I'm not the Steve he grew up with either. He _is_ different, but at his core he is still the same Bucky I know. He’s still the same man I love and I'm not letting anyone take him back until he's ready to go.”

The thought of admitting his true feelings for Bucky had always filled him with fear. Fear that the world would reject Bucky for something that Steve felt. Fear that Bucky would reject him if he knew, or, even worse, would pity him. But now that he'd finally said the words out loud all he felt was relief. He wasn't going to pretend anymore.

Steve stuck his chin out and pulled his shoulders back, ready to fight them both, ready to fight the whole world for Bucky. There was a long silence as Natasha and Sam both stared at him.

“Steve you know we love you no matter what, we’re your friends. You can tone down the righteous anger man.” Sam clapped him on the back and Steve felt himself deflate a little bit.

“Let’s compromise," Nat interrupted. "We give Barnes the next week to do whatever the hell he’s doing. But after that one of us, probably Steve since he seems hesitant to kill you, has to make contact again to try and reason with him. This is as much for his safety as for others.”

She had a point, Steve knew she had a point. Still, it was hard to nod his agreement.

“Give him the full week though, I don’t want any of your tricks Nat. He has to be allowed to go where he wants. I’m not going to let anyone take him against his will.”

She nodded, much less reluctantly then Steve had, and he wondered if this was what she had wanted all along. Nat was always two steps ahead of everyone.

“So, how long are you staying with us?” Sam asked, and Steve was grateful for the subject change.

“I’m not. I’m just passing through, I have another mission I have to take care of first.”

“A mission?” She sighed and rolled her eyes at the skepticism in Steve’s voice.

“Don’t get your star spangled tights in a bunch. I want to figure out how that Hydra agent located Barnes and I want to find out if he’s hit anyone's radar. I have a few contacts I need to meet with in person to make sure your boyfriend’s tracks are well and truly covered.”

“Thank you Nat, that’s really- that just means-“ She waved away Steve’s gratefulness.

“It’s fine, but it will only last for so long. Right now everyone is operating on the assumption that he’s dead. They aren't looking for him, but as soon as word starts to get out you better believe the CIA, FBI, Congress, and every international espionage agency worth their weight is going to want to get their hands on him. You have to prepare for that, give him his time, but get ready to fight.”

Steve’s thankful smile faded into a grim nod. She could tell even as she bid them goodbye that Steve was already hard at work strategizing, planning the favors he’d have to call in, the agencies he’d have to bulldoze through to get Barnes home. If anyone could get the Winter Soldier free and clear it was Steve. Nat just wasn’t convinced that Steve's sacrifices would be worth it in the end.

But she was going to find out.

***

After eleven hours on the train and another hour and a half trudging from hostel to hostel in search of a single room James was ready to find a nice dark alley to curl up in for the night. He’d managed to catch some sleep on the train, but it hadn’t been good.

His dreams had been filled with faceless Hydra agents and civilian screams. Being awake wasn’t much better, self-doubt crept in again and again accompanied by a deep longing for the solitude and simplicity of his cabin.

But he’d already made his decision, he was going to see this harebrained trip through whether it led to the recovery of his memory or not.

With a sigh, James trudged into the fourth hostel on his list. Once again his request for a single room was met with a shake of the head, he was about to turn out to honestly go find an alley when the woman working the front desk called him back.

“We don’t have any single rooms right now, but it looks like we’ll have one available the day after tomorrow. There’s a double room open tonight and tomorrow night with no one else booked to it yet – do you want me to reserve that for you and then hold the single room?”

It wasn’t perfect, but to his tired ears it was the best thing he’d heard in hours. He nodded stiffly and resisted the urge to just rest his head on the counter while she rang up his bill and got him all booked.

“There is a chance someone could end up booking the double with you but it’s late enough in the day now that if anything it’d be for tomorrow night.”

“That’s fine,” James croaked and then dug out cash and one of his unused passports for ID. He was relieved when she didn’t pull up a bunch of paperwork like Kale had; instead she just looked over his ID and wrote down his fake name. The fewer records of his passport ID the better, if he could he’d get rid of them altogether but that would make everything that much more difficult. For now he was stuck relying on them.

His room was on the third floor this time and was considerably larger than his last one. It had two single beds, each with a small safe beneath and a side table. On the left hand side of the room was a small bathroom with its own shower.

It didn’t feel as cozy as the room in Kale’s hostel, and he couldn’t set up too many security measures in case he did end up with a roommate, but it was relatively clean and it was warm.

He laid a few trip wires by the window and set up a chair in front of the door. Both would be enough to warn him if someone tried to break in while he slept.

Then he washed his face, changed out of his Paris superfan outfit and crawled into bed. Even as he lay down to sleep he knew he wouldn’t get too much tonight. He was tired, but his mind was still thinking over the last few days. The chance that he might have to share his space with a stranger only fed his anxiety.

Still, it felt nice to lay flat on a bed. He pulled out his travel guide and started to flip through it as a distraction from his thoughts. It was thicker than his Paris book and it wasn’t hard to see why. It seemed like every building in Rome was of historical significance. There were so many places to see and so many tours available that James felt his resolution to remain secluded start to crumble.

_There is no living without being vulnerable, but that does not make you a victim._

Oh good, the Steve-voice was back.

Maybe it was his exhaustion, or maybe it was the long list of places he’d mentally marked in the book, but James decided that the voice had a point. Surely he could stay under the radar and still enjoy the city? He was still thinking it over as he finally drifted off to sleep, guide book firmly in hand.

***

Although they were both major tourist destinations, Rome felt as different from Paris as night from day.

Paris was a city that happened to have tourists; Rome was a city built on them.

Despite the lack of sleep over the past two days, James still woke up bright and early the next morning. He had taken one look at the beautiful sunshine outside and at the depressing emptiness of his hostel room and decided that the Steve-voice in his head was right and that he could afford to go out and visit the sights. He doubted his memory would return just from him sitting in the room.

He showered, shaved, and changed clothes before packing everything up into his Paris backpack and fanny pack and hitting the first stop on his list.

The Colosseum was bigger than he’d imagined and as he stood dutifully in the entrance line he couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. Around him tourists took pictures or looked down at their phones, but all James could do was look up. Up and up to the top of the crumbling facade.

It was so large and so... old. For thousands of years it had stood just like this as millions of others had looked up at it.

For a moment James felt small and insignificant, just another speck in the universe. It made him feel like his problems, and God did he have problems, weren’t all that big. His heart clenched in his chest and he felt a fierce ache for some unknown missing part of himself.

For a moment he had the curious feeling that there should be someone next to him, that if he reached out his right arm it would curl around someone’s shoulders.

“Next please!” The security guard waved him forward and the feeling was lost, the ache in his chest remained.

He passed through security without problem and walked under one of the entrance arches. Following the crowd, he walked up a set of stone stairs, turned a corner, and walked through another arch out and into the stadium.

He walked to the edge of the seats and looked downwards into the sunny arena. Around him groups of tourists milled and laughed. Most of them were taking photos of themselves. All James could do was stare. After a few minutes of gawking he began to slowly walk around the stadium. On his right a tour guide was talking to a large group of tourists. Curious, he slowly inserted himself into the crowd to listen.

“Many of the gladiators who fought here were prisoners of war, soldiers taken during Roman conquests and forced to fight for the entertainment of the Roman emperors and people.”

Prisoners of war.

Forced to fight.

James couldn’t breath, his chest felt tight, his hands shaky. He turned away from the tour guide and made a beeline for an unoccupied corner of shade. He pressed himself into the cool stone and laid his head against it. He stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying the cool stone on his flushed cheeks. He pretended it was someone's cool hand brushing his forehead until he felt his heart finally return to baseline.

He decided he’d had enough of the Colosseum after that.

Still concentrating on his breathing, James stumbled his way outside again and took a moment just to stand and soak in the Italian sun. He took one last deep breath and opened his eyes again. He wouldn't let this ruin his time here. If he was going to throw caution to the wind and venture outside of his hostel he was going to enjoy himself.

He spent the rest of the day wandering the nearby Roman Forum, guidebook firmly in hand.

By the end of the day he was hot and sweaty, but he felt like he’d recaptured a little bit of the peace that he’d felt at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The hostel was loud with young tourists flirting and laughing as James dragged his tired body up the stairs to his room. He stopped when he noticed that the rug outside of the door was wrinkled. He was going to have a roommate tonight.

He debated just leaving and sleeping in an alley so he could avoid talking to someone he didn’t know, but the urge to shower won out. He could always leave if it was too much.

He opened the door slowly, expecting an eager twenty-something, no doubt tired from a long day of touring.

Instead he found the Black Widow.

Her flaming hair was pulled back into a tight pony. Her eyes were narrowed and her hand held a gun aimed steadily between his eyes. James had no doubt that her aim would be true.

“Close the door.” She ordered and James did so slowly.

Off the top of his head he could think of five different ways to diffuse the situation, but all of them would end with her death. That was the only way to stop a Widow. But he remembered that she was Steve's friend and every fiber of his being rebelled at the thought of causing Steve anymore pain. Killing his friend would definitely cause Steve pain.

So instead of breaking her neck or kicking a chair at her throat James waited for her to tell him what she wanted. She didn't make him wait long.

Her voice was as steady as she recited the words.

He felt his body freeze, his mind slowed as the ten command words fought to wipe him blank again.

For a moment the Soldier began to rise up, James began to be pushed down. But this time he fought.

The words bounced around his skull, each one a demand that he had to push back, that he had to destroy.

His fists clenched, he snarled, and in a burst of speed he knocked her gun aside, grasped her wrists in his left hand and slammed her into the wall. Her eyes widened in surprise for a split second before her face rearranged itself into one of calm.

He wanted to squeeze the life out her and for a moment he considered it. She was a threat and he should destroy her.

 _That’s the Winter Soldier thinking, not James._ Stevie’s voice chimed in and James shook his head in protest at the intrusion.

His breath was ragged and he couldn’t get enough air.

“Breathe slowly. In and out.” Her voice was soft and he found himself following her instructions.

His heart rate began to slow; the anxiety clawing up inside of him began to recede. The anger didn’t.

“I had to make sure that you wouldn’t turn on him.” It wasn’t an apology, and James knew he’d never get one.

They stayed that way for a while, the Widow pinned, her eyes calculating as he fought to regain his composure.

“You shook the command words off fairly quickly. You’re healing much faster than anyone anticipated.” Her tone was conversational, as if the two of them were just catching up over a cup of coffee.

James took a few more calm breaths before he slowly uncurled his fingers and set her down on the floor.

He scrubbed his flesh hand down his face, his earlier exhaustion returning in a rush. When he opened his eyes she was sitting on the spare bed.

“So tell me Barnes, why are you in Rome?” James crossed his arms and stared at her.

“Why do you want to know?” She shrugged and examined her nails. “I’m the Black Widow; it’s my job to know things.”

James shook his head, “That’s not good enough.”

She sighed and looked up, meeting his eyes. “Steve Rogers is someone…special. He trusts me. I let him down before. I put him at risk and I won’t put him at risk again.”

He knew she was referring to Project Insight and Hydra’s steady infiltration of an organization that Steve had trusted.

For years Steve had been surrounded by the very people who had worked so hard to destroy him and in the end they had almost succeeded in their goal. James sat down heavily on his bed. He could have lost Steve, he could have lost him and never even known that he had someone to loose. He buried his face in his hands at the thought, all of the calm he had achieved gone in an instant.

Both of them were silent while James tried to pull himself back together.

After a few minutes she spoke again, “I don’t know how much you remember from before, but Rogers constantly puts himself in of danger. He needs someone to look after him and, since his top choice for the job has been MIA the past year, the position has fallen to me. Now, what are you doing in Rome and why won’t you come back to New York with Steve?”

Her words gutted him just as efficiently as one of her knives. He dug his fingers into his hair, twisting and tangling the shortened strands as he debated what to say. All of his training told him it was a bad idea to share anything more with her, she was a child of the Red Room.

But...she was also Steve’s friend, his protector. Without her who knew where Steve would be right now?

“I can’t go back with Steve. Not when I’m such a-a- “ He gestured at himself.

“Such a fan of Paris?” The Widow’s voice was so dry that he couldn’t help the small upturn of his mouth. He was getting too good at smiling.

“I’m barely a person. I need to be…better before I go with Steve. I need to at least…well remember him.”

“So this trip is to help you regain your memories?” Her tone was a question, but he knew she had already found her answer.

“I didn’t know that the Howling Commandos ever ran missions in Italy, much less Rome. How could visiting someplace the two of you have never been help you remember him?”

It sounded stupid hearing it out loud. James’ shrugged, debating how much more to say.

“We never got to visit Rome, doesn’t mean we didn’t want to.” He finally mumbled from behind his fingers.

They sat in silence; James could almost hear her brain processing the information he’d given her.

“Did it ever occur to you that Steve is, in a lot of ways, struggling just as much as you are to rebuild himself?” James jerked up at that.

The Widow still sat on the bed across from him, but now she leaned forward, her bright eyes holding him captive.

“Steve needs you Barnes. But he’d never do anything to hurt you and if he has to choose between your well being or his own he's always going to pick yours. I’m not saying there aren’t merits to your plan, from one former brainwashed assassin to another, it’s important to reestablish yourself on your own terms. But, if you want to remember your time with Steve, if you want to truly remember Steve, then there will come a time when avoiding him will do more harm than good – and not just to your own health.” James felt like his head was spinning.

She stood and some long forgotten set of manners had James standing as well.

“Don’t stay away from him for too long or I’ll hunt you down and drag you back myself.”

“I don’t doubt that Widow.” She dimpled at the name.

“I think we're on a first name basis now. You can call me Natasha.”

“Well... I guess you can call me Bucky then.”

***

She didn’t take the direct way back to her hotel.

She never took the direct way anywhere if she could avoid it, old habits died hard.

The hotel was surprisingly close to Bucky’s hostel and, much as she wished she could say she’d planned that, it had been a coincidence. She hated coincidences.

She didn’t bother with the front entrance but circled around to the staff entrance in the back. She took the service elevator up to her room on the top floor.

Secure in the knowledge that no one had followed her, she unlocked her room with only one look over her shoulder.

“So, how’d the shovel talk go?” Clint lay on the bed, a travel guide in one hand and a beer in the other.

Natasha shrugged. “Better than anticipated.”

“Hmm, does that mean he’s good enough for our Stevie?” Clint looked up and winked at her, “I’m not gonna I lie, I got my fingers crossed on this one. God knows Cap deserves a happy ending.”

There had been a time not too long ago when Natasha would have scoffed at the idea of a happy ending.

She watched as Clint lazily turned another page in the guidebook and let herself smile at the domesticity of the scene. Who would have ever thought she would be part of a domestic scene?

“Hey, you ever been to the Colosseum? And not like for work. We should go tomorrow, I think Barnes is really on to something with this whole tourist thing.”

Maybe Clint was right, maybe Bucky was on to something.


	7. He Lit a Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First thing's first, I’m going to stop trying to predict when I’ll have chapters posted. My initial schedule was to have a new chapter up every other week and I'll try to stick with that as much as I can. Especially as we get closer to the end!
> 
> Second, the song that this chapter is named after is really called "She Lit a Fire," but for the purposes of the story I’ve changed that the "she" to a "he."
> 
> Third, I tried my best to make the timeline for the events in this chapter clear, but I may have failed. This whole story has been unbeta'd so if there are mistakes, typos, etc. please let me know.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“I've been through the desert

And I've been cross the sea

I've been walking through the mountains

I've wandered through the trees for him

I have been trying to find him

Want to give what I got, he lit a fire

And now he's in my every thought.”

***

The text came just after sunrise. 

The language was encrypted, but it only took Nat a few seconds to decode. 

<Karpov. Rome. Retrieving lost equipment.>

 _ **<** ETA? **>** _ She quickly typed back.

<Unknown. Flew out yesterday.>

Nat knew that was all the information she would get from this particular contact. But it was enough.

After the fall of SHIELD Nat had done more than leak files, she’d also spent a fair amount of time decoding them, destroying what she could, and obscuring the rest. She’d had a lot of free time on her hands. 

She knew who Karpov was and if Hydra was bringing him in then they weren’t fucking around. They wanted Barnes back – badly.

_A piece of equipment._

Barnes wasn’t equipment.

Nat still wasn’t entirely sold on Barnes, on Bucky, but she was sold on Steve Rogers and she would be damned (well more damned) if she let Hydra separate them again.

She read the message once more and then deleted it.

On the other side of the bed Clint let out a monstrous snore. Nat kicked him in the ribs.

“What the fuck Nat, what was that for?” He groaned and buried his head back in the pillow. It was an act. He’d been awake the moment the phone had buzzed beside her. Neither of them would ever truly sleep well again, not with their histories. Still, Clint never passed up the opportunity to moan over something. It always made her laugh, on the inside of course.

“They’re coming for him.” She didn’t need to explain more than that and she kept the language vague in case anyone was listening. Old habits died hard.

“Ugh, of course they are. On the day I booked us a guided tour of the Colosseum. It’s not enough to try and murder most of the planet, they also have to ruin our romantic trip. Hydra can go fuck themselves.” Clint stuffed his head under his pillow for a few more moments before sighing and flopping out of bed.

“Alright, what’s the plan?” He asked as he stood and pulled on his pants.

“First, we find him. He’s probably at his hostel. If we’re lucky, we can convince him to come back to the U.S. on his own. If we're not lucky... well, I don't think he'll actually try to kill us this time.”

She hopped out of bed, pulled on her clothes, and began to strap on more weapons. She always slept with a few in easy reach, but if she was going up against Hydra, and, depending on how it went, possibly Barnes in full Winter Soldier mode, she wanted as many knives and guns on her person as possible.

“Let’s go.” Clint said, ready, if not entirely enthusiastic.

“I need to touch base with Paris first.”

She pulled out one of her many burner phones, powered it up, and called Steve. 

She kept it short and when she hung up she knew the next call Steve would make would be to get himself and Sam on the next flight to Rome.

Nat just hoped he made it in time.

*** 

Bucky.

He didn’t know why he’d told the Widow – Natasha – to call him that. It felt… okay. Maybe not a name for everyone to use. But for a few people… maybe.

He was going to try it at least. He could always go back to James. What he called himself was his own decision now. As he lay awake in the hostel’s small bed he added 'choosing my own name' to the top of his mental list of things he was proud of.

It was still very dark outside. But he actually felt well rested, a welcome change from yesterday. Maybe the exhaustion from his long train ride and sleepless first night had finally gotten to him. Or maybe it was that the shoe he was always waiting for had already dropped. He’d confronted the Black Widow and both of them had left with no major injuries. Instead they’d left as… respectful rivals he supposed.

Whatever the reason, Bucky had slept well and he felt ready to get up and go see more of the city. Even if the majority of the city was still asleep. He took a quick shower, shaved, and dressed in jeans, boots, a plain long sleeved shirt, and his gloves. Once the sun was up he knew he'd overheat in the long sleeves, but it couldn’t be helped. He slung on his backpack and clipped his fanny pack in place. By now he’d decided the usefulness of the thing far outweighed any fashion concerns. It was damned handy to have his money, fake passports, and guidebook all in one conveniently located front pouch. Even if it did turn him into a walking billboard for Paris.

Maybe he’d get one that said Rome on it instead.

The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon when he left the hostel. Eyes peeled for a store open at this early hour, he was surprised when he actually found one. It didn't end up having any fanny packs, but it did have a small selection of cell phones. Ten minutes later he left the store with a shitty flip phone and an even shittier cell phone plan. He powered up the phone, clicked through the set-up, and selected the little envelope icon.

He had a promise to keep.

Even though he kept the message simple, Bucky still paused before hitting send. He was nervous, which was preposterous. With all of the things he’d done, all of the things that had been done to him, sending a simple text message shouldn’t make him nervous.

Still.

He thought about what the Widow had told him last night.

He hit send. 

Annnnd he immediately regretted it. It was fucking early, why did he send a message so early? What if he’d said something dumb?

_Why was he acting like this?_

In an effort to get his panic under some semblance of control Bucky turned the phone off and stuffed it in his fanny pack. 

Too distracted to read his guidebook or look at a map, he picked a random direction and began to walk. It took an hour or so, but eventually he felt his panic begin to drain away. He really was being ridiculous if he was getting this worked up about texting Steve. I mean, come on, it was _Steve._

What was so anxiety-inducing about him? Steve's smiling face and broad shoulders flashed through Bucky's mind.

He quickly picked another direction at random and power walked until both images were firmly put away and he felt something close to calm again.

By this time the sun had well and truly risen and tourists were starting to appear. Taking stock of his surroundings, Bucky found himself down the street from a large fountain. He dug out his guide book and flipped through it until he found a picture of the place. Apparently, this was the famous Trevi Fountain. He stuffed the book back in his pack and dug around for a coin. Carefully following the book's instructions, he turned around, closed his eyes, and tossed it over his left shoulder with his right hand.

He made a wish. For an instant he let himself believe that it would come true.

Ignoring the phone sitting temptingly in his pack Bucky moved further away from the fountain, and the increasingly aggressive crowds, and dug his book back out. He would not waste his time worrying about a stupid text message. He was here to see the sights and jog some memories and neither was going to happen if he wasted the entire day power walking aimlessly and stressing out. He flipped through the book, examined the pages he'd marked up, and created a plan of attack.

Several hours later, Bucky found himself in the Piazza del Popolo, reviewing his mental check list with satisfaction:

  1. Eat gelato. **Check.**
  2. Eat a second gelato. **Check.**
  3. Buy a third gelato for the road. **Check.**
  4. Get glared at by gelato maker for holding up line and glare back until you get discounted gelato. **Check**.
  5. Stare at the Pantheon. **Check.**
  6. Stare at the Tiber. ** **Check****
  7. Stare at the Mausoleum of Augustus. **Check.**
  8. Wonder why the Mausoleum of Augustus looks like a dump. **Double check.**



With the sun still beating down on him and his long sleeves doing nothing to keep him cool he decided it was time to take a break. He stopped at a food truck and sat down at a secluded bench in the square to people watch.

He spent the next hour sitting in the square, eating, reading his book, and enjoying the scenery. For a moment, he let himself close his eyes and simply enjoy the late afternoon light beating down on his face.

The feeling of peace didn't last long. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise up.

Someone was watching him.

***

The morning had been a roller coaster of emotions for Steve, and, by extension, for Sam.

First, Steve had gotten a text from an unknown number at what Sam referred to as “the ass crack of dawn."  

The text had been simple, but it had also been the most beautiful thing Steve had ever read.

_< Still okay. Taking in the Roman sites.>_

Bucky was in Rome. Bucky was in Rome and he had _told Steve about it_! That had to be a breakthrough—right? 

An hour later though, all of Steve’s excitement was gone.

Nat’s voice had been calm and controlled as she'd told him what her contact had said. It was a stark contrast to the fury that had built inside of him as she walked him through who Karpov was, his role, and the danger his imminent arrival in Rome presented. Steve had clenched his jaw so tightly during their brief call that he had almost cracked a tooth.

He'd channeled his fury into action, which was how only an hour later Steve and Sam found themselves on one of Tony’s private jets and on their way to Rome.

With a sigh, Sam dumped his bag in an overhead compartment and dropped down into one of the plush leather seats. Across the aisle Steve sat rigidly, his hands opening and closing restlessly on the armrests. Every few seconds he checked his phone.

“Nat and Clint are there. They’ll find him, they’ll keep him safe.” Sam didn’t bother to point out that from everything he’d seen Bucky was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Hell, he was probably going to drop Karpov from the top of the Vatican or something. Dropping people off of tall places was kind of the guy's M.O. 

“I should be there Sam. I should be the one protecting him."

Sam leaned across the aisle and grabbed one of Steve’s nervous hands in his own.

“Steve, I need you to take a few breaths for me. Don’t roll those damn eyes just listen. Take a few breaths.”

Steve did what he said and focused on counting. It helped a bit, until his phone started to ring.

He scrambled to answer it, “Bucky?”

“No, even better, it’s Tony. Look, it’s one thing to use my buckets of money to take a trip-I get it, I support it even, but now you’re leaving Paris after like three days? If you’re gonna use my money at least put it to good use! What was the problem, not enough liberty there for you Capsicle?”

“Hi Tony.” Steve really couldn’t muster the mental energy to deal with Tony at the moment so he shoved the phone into Sam’s hands. Rolling his eyes, Sam picked up the phone. Unsurprisingly, Tony was still talking. 

“Hey man, it’s Sam. Uh yeah, Steve had to go check on a call from Nat… No, no, he’s not avoiding you. Look, we got a message from Nat about Hydra. They’re heading to Rome to recapture Bucky. Yes, of course it's that Bucky, how many Buckys do you know?"

A pause.

"Didn’t Steve tell you what happened in Paris?” Sam asked.

Steve cringed. He hadn't told anyone besides Sam and Nat. It hadn't seemed like the right time and he'd kind of assumed that Nat would fill the rest of the team in. Clearly that had been a mistake.

There was a squawk on the other end of the line. Sam pinned Steve with a glare.

“We ran into Bucky in Paris but he wasn’t ready to come in yet-no, it has to be his decision. Look, it doesn’t matter, he’s in Rome now and Hydra’s after him and we have no way of getting a hold of him to warn him. He’s not answering his phone... Yes, the Winter Soldier has a cellphone… What brand? I don't know! It’s probably some cheapo burner like Natasha’s—" Sam fell silent again and mimed banging his head against the window.

Steve closed his eyes and mentally traced the lines of Bucky's face.

It would be fine, they would find him, and then Steve was going to glue himself to Bucky's side and never let him out of his sight again. Even if letting Bucky rediscover himself on his own was the right thing to do. Steve _always_ did the right thing...couldn't he be selfish this once?

 _Not if it hurts Bucky._ The righteous voice of Captain America said.

God, sometimes he hated Captain America. 

He put his face in his hands and tried in vain to tune out Sam’s conversation. 

“Look, Tony you can yell at Steve later. But if you want to help do some of that computer stuff you’re so good at and track Bucky down... I don’t know how, can’t you like hack into surveillance cameras or some shit?” Sam paused and listened to Tony’s indignant response. 

“Yeah, that sounds exactly like what I said only with fancier words. Call it whatever you want, but help us find him before Hydra does.”

Another pause.

“No, don’t bring the suit. No, Tony, it’s not going to be helpful for you to race all the way...Okay, well if I’d known you were going to throw the whole ‘I paid for your failed vacation thing’ back in my face we never would have... Okay, okay, it’s a deal. See you soon.”

Sam hung up the phone and threw it at Steve, who caught it easily. It immediately buzzed with a text message from Tony.

Rolling his eyes, Steve slide open the screen. 

_I thought we were friends Steven and friends tell friends about locating previously deceased boyfriends who are also former assassins. We are going to have words once I see you! WORDS! Also, you can’t plan a trip to Rome with half of the team on my dime and not invite me. That's a dick move.  
_

Despite himself, Steve smiled. Tony was going to hold this over him forever, but he also knew that when push came to shove Tony would always show up for his friends.

***

Bucky held up his guidebook, pretending to get a closer look at it while he scanned the crowd for whoever was watching him. 

There.

He counted three “tourists” making a beeline straight towards him. In a strange attempt at blending in, all three men wore Hard Rock Café T-shirts, baseball caps, and sunglasses. One of them had a camera hanging from around his neck while another wore one of those tiny, fox branded backpacks. What the hell.

Whatever they were going for with their disguises the entire effect was ruined by how they muscled their way through the crowds, keeping Bucky front and center in their line of sight.

Hydra really wasn’t doing so great if this was what passed for subtlety these days.

He cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind him was a staircase that led up to a terrace above the square. It was completely devoid of people, a seemingly easy exit.

They were trying to herd him. 

Hydra really was stupid if they thought three poorly concealed agents was going to be enough to make him flee in the direction they wanted.

He stood and stretched, shaking out any stiffness from sitting. If it was a fight Hydra wanted, they would get one.

Meeting his eyes, one of the incoming agent’s smiled before quickly pulling out a gun and shooting it up into the air.

The shots echoed off of the buildings, startling pigeons and sending tourists running. The agent’s smile grew bigger at the chaos he had created.

Bucky could stay and fight, but it was clear that they were prepared to kill civilians while he fought them.

He had no choice. He turned and ran to the staircase, vaulting up the steps. He could hear the agents start to run. They were quickly falling behind and he entertained the idea of dodging from the path, he had no doubt that he could loose them. He started to veer.

Another gunshot went off, joined by a chorus of screams.

They weren't messing around. If he tried to disappear they'd kill as many people as they could. He'd have more blood on his hands. So he continued to run, up the staircase, across another roadway, and up the final flight that would lead to the terrace above.

Far behind him the agents jeered and laughed even as they huffed and puffed up the stairs. He wanted to wring their necks, he wanted to kill them slowly for making him into a puppet again.

 _You're not a puppet._ The Steve voice said in his head. _You still control your actions.  
_

He knew the voice was a product of his messed-up brain, but hearing Steve centered him.

He wasn’t the confused, malnourished, broken creature that they’d created. He wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore.

He was James Buchanan Barnes and he was going to make them regret interrupting his goddamned vacation/memory retrieval operation.

Vaulting over the final step with ease, Bucky skidded onto an eerily quiet overlook. In the cool air of the early evening the terrace should have been packed with tourists. But there were only three men in front of him.

“Ah, soldat, so nice of you to join us.”

Bucky’s blood ran cold. It was the handler.

It was Karpov.


	8. Lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're closing in on the end of the story! Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading and an especially big THANK YOU to those who have left a kudos, a comment, or bookmarked this work. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“You arrive along with the sun  
Where have you been darlin'? What have you done?  
You were out finding trouble again  
There's a fire in your eyes and there's blood on your hands” 

***

Steve had no idea what he would do without Jarvis. Sure, the A.I. had been overwhelming at first, but Jarvis made an invaluable ally. Especially when you found yourself racing against the clock to search an entire city for one person.

Even with the A.I. hacking into the city’s security cameras (something Steve would normally have never allowed) it was going to take some time to find Bucky. The camera feeds the A.I. was scanning through were old and the images were grainy, which meant that every potential sighting of Bucky on camera had to be checked in person before they could cross it off their list. Steve was glad both Natasha and Clint had been in Rome to help.

Of course, before he had talked to Nat this morning he hadn't even known Clint was traveling with Natasha. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. One day, when he got everything sorted with Bucky, he was going to do some interrogating of his own to get to the bottom of whatever was going on between Natasha and Clint. For now, he was just thrilled to have another person to check out leads.

It was only after an entire afternoon spent chasing down tall, dark-haired men and getting sworn at in various languages that they got their break.

 “Guys, I’ve got reports of gunfire coming in over the police scanner. There’s something going on in the north of the city, in something called the Pizza de Pope-po-lo…?” Clint’s confident tone faltered as he stumbled over the name.

“That’s _Piazza_ del Popolo, you hick, not pizza.” Natasha chimed in, her Italian flawless over the comm. link.

“I don’t care how it’s pronounced, everyone rendez-vous there ASAP. Nat, who’s the closest?” Steve ordered.

“You’re closest Cap,” she said without missing a beat, Nat always knew where to find everyone. She quickly rattled off the best route for Steve to take.

“I don’t suppose you’re actually going to wait for us to arrive?” She asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Not a chance.”

***

Karpov.

The old man’s face wavered in front of him and in its place Bucky saw the young man who was still the subject of so many of his nightmares. It was strange to see Karpov so grizzled by time, when Bucky remained so unchanged.

 _Not unchanged,_ the Steve voice whispered fiercely _._ He was healing, he was his own person now, the past year, hell the past week of traveling, had changed Bucky into someone unrecognizable to Karpov. Bucky was something human again.

“You had to know that we would find you eventually soldat.” Karpov’s smile was filled with teeth. Bucky recognized it for what it was: a sign of desperation. Behind the old man the two strangers shifted. One of them wore a thick mask, its plastic scratched and scuffed to resemble a skull. Across his chest a large X had been gouged into his tack gear.

Bucky wondered if he’d sanded both pieces himself. The lengths people went to be intimidating these days was really too much. 

The other man behind Karpov was your standard Hydra henchman: tall, well muscled, and with a somewhat vacant expression that came from years and years of systematic brainwashing. Of the three men, Karpov presented the most threat, with the costumed man in second, and the vacant-eyed henchman in dead last. Bucky was certain he could kill the henchman with his left hand tied behind his back and his eyes closed.

“Come with us now and no one will get hurt.” Karpov held out a hand. It trembled slightly, a thin bead of sweat gathered at his brow.

Karpov was nervous.

A thrill of pleasure shot through Bucky. Karpov didn’t know if he could bring the Winter Soldier back to heel.

“No.” Bucky said, reveling in his power to refuse.

“What?” Karpov inhaled sharply. The masked man behind him cracked his knuckles while the nondescript henchman shifted nervously.

"Did I stutter? I said no.”

The old man’s face grew red, his entire body began shake as he spat out the command words. Bucky felt each one like a punch in the gut, his mind automatically translating the familiar Russian into English.

Longing.

Rusted.

Furnace.

Daybreak.

Seventeen.

Benign.

Nine.

Homecoming.

One.

Freight Car.

Neither the Hydra agent’s sloppy command in Paris, nor the Widow’s calm demands yesterday had truly prepared Bucky for hearing those words in Karpov’s achingly familiar voice.

As they rolled off of the other man’s tongue, each word conjured blurry images, memories that Bucky couldn’t quite grasp. Ghostly pains long since healed shook his body, the individual words reigniting half-remembered injuries that Hydra had inflicted in order to program the commands into his skull. For an instant Bucky found himself outside of his own body, a passenger, as Karpov demanded that the Winter Soldier come to him. 

In the distance Bucky could hear gunshots. On the wind he thought he heard his name being called by a voice as familiar as Karpov’s, but for an entirely different reason. The two henchman behind Karpov moved around the old man and began to run towards the gunshots. Bucky paid them no attention as they quickly ran past him and down the terrace stairs. Karpov waited nervously for the result of his commands.

"Ready to comply," Bucky bit out. Karpov's shoulders sagged in relief.

"Soldat, come here now." He commanded, his voice confident.

Bucky let his backpack drop as he began to walk towards Karpov’s outstretched hand. He kept his pace slow and steady until he stood directly in front of Karpov.

He made sure to look squarely into the other man’s eyes as he grasped him around the neck and, with one savage twist, fulfilled one of his deepest and darkest desires.

As Karpov’s corpse crumpled to the ground it was as if a spell was lifted, the Winter Soldier finally put to rest. The sounds of fighting surged to the forefront of his senses. Despite the chaos below him, the only thing he felt was relief, relief and a bone deep weariness as he stared down at the man laying before him. He felt a bit like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Bucky?” He froze at the voice. It wasn’t in his head. Steve was here. Steve was here and he had seen Bucky kill Karpov. 

Bucky slowly turned to find Steve, in full Captain America uniform, standing at the top of the staircase. He looked just as stunned to see Bucky as Bucky felt to see him. Neither of them noticed the masked and heavily armored man creeping up behind Steve until it was too late.

With a cruel laugh the man fired his gun, even as Steve dived out of the way.

Time seemed to stand still as Bucky watched Steve stumble and fall. A loud ringing filled his ears, his vision grayed out at the edges. Something deep within him screamed and screamed at the sight of Steve bleeding on the ground in front of him. 

All of his weariness was gone, in its place was a blood boiling rage. Someone had hurt Steve.

Someone had hurt _Steve_.

And they had to pay.

***

“Wow, is anyone else seeing this? Because I gotta say it is equal parts beautiful and fucking terrifying,” Stark’s voice filled the comm. link, not a surprising thing on its own (the man never seemed to stop talking) but since Natasha knew for a fact that Stark was still en route to Rome it was unexpected.

“Stark? What the hell are you talking about? Are you in Rome already?” Clint asked as he grabbed another arrow from his quiver and sent it flying straight through a Hydra agent’s neck.

“Nah, I’m getting close though. I've got a drone above the fight and can I say that Steve had better be damn sure Barnes is a good guy now because what I am seeing is making me reconsider my promise not to shoot the guy on sight. Really the only thing stopping me now is that fanny pack he’s rocking – the Winter Soldier never wore fanny packs before, right?”

“Stark, we can’t see what you’re talking about so please quit the gloating and tell us what’s going on.” Natasha stabbed a Hydra agent in the gut before climbing further up the never-ending staircase. Steve, the reckless idiot, had been as good as his word and hadn't bothered to wait for the rest of them to arrive before charging up the stairs. Once again, Natasha was left with clean-up duty. 

“Oh shit, okay, wow Stark was not lying.” Sam chimed in, having flown up to the top of the terrace to provide some aerial support to Steve.

“Sam…” Nat growled.

“Okay, well Steve got shot by that masked guy and well, he’ll be fine, it went through his shoulder but Bucky... Bucky is going nuts.”

“He’s reverted back to his programming?” Clint asked, the disappointed note in his voice unmistakable.

“Ahh no. No, I’ve had the bad luck to see the Winter Soldier in a fight and this is not the Winter Soldier.”

Sam didn’t like to remember it, but he had seen the fighting style of the Winter Soldier up close and personal in D.C.

The Winter Soldier had been emotional-less in battle. 

Bucky Barnes fought with a calculated fury. While the Soldier had been almost economical in his fighting, placing his mission above all things and ending each confrontation as quickly and efficiently as possible, Barnes’ was drawing this fight out. His every move seemed designed to inflict maximum pain and damage.

Aware that his teammates were waiting to hear his report Sam struggled to put into words what he was witnessing. Eventually, he gave up.

“This is really something else guys. I don’t know how to describe it but you better get up here.”

There was no further response.

There wasn’t really anything else to say to that. Nat and Clint each dropped another agent before they pelted for the top of the staircase.

*** 

It was shock rather than pain that kept Steve lying on the terrace like an idiot, shield still in hand. The past fifteen minutes had been a blur of crashing through Hydra agents to get to the terrace; seeing Bucky, shoulders hunched, over the body of Karpov; and being shot.

Of everything that happened it was the being shot that had been the least remarkable. The bullet had cut clean through his shoulder, leaving a burning pain and a quickly healing wound.

The wound was minor, but Bucky’s reaction to it had been anything but. Before his eyes Steve had watched Bucky transform from a hunched over, exhausted looking man to a wrecking ball. He could hear the others on the comm. discussing it. He could see Stark’s drone, painted an overly loud red and gold, hovering above the scene. Sam was right; this wasn’t the Winter Soldier fighting. This wasn’t even Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes fighting.

The man before him was none other than Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn, New York. Sure, he was fighting with a metal arm and using skills that he hadn’t had when it’d been just the two of them in some alley scrape, but Bucky still had the same controlled fury in his eyes that had always flared to life when someone picked on Steve. He fought with the same disregard for airy notions like sportsmanship and honor. Not that Bucky didn’t have honor, he did. He just didn’t believe in it when it came to brawling with someone who had hurt Steve.

A well-placed punch with Bucky’s left hand cracked his opponent's mask clean in two and sent it flying. The face beneath it was unexpectedly familiar - Brock Rumlow.

If Bucky recognized Rumlow he showed no sign of it. It didn’t matter, because the way Bucky was beating Rumlow into the ground Steve knew it would be over very soon for Brock if he didn't put a stop to the fight. Steve hauled himself up off of the ground and rushed over to Bucky.

“Bucky, stop, that’s enough.” But Bucky either couldn’t hear him, or chose to ignore him. His entire focus was on where Rumlow lay on the ground, his head cradled in his hands as Bucky continued to kick him over and over again.

Something wasn’t right.

What had Steve been thinking letting Bucky fight like this, so soon after the confrontation with Karpov. 

Steve strode forward and grabbed Bucky’s left hand, yanking him back.

Bucky reared up and whipped around to face Steve, but he didn’t strike. His dark blue eyes were hazy, but his breath was barely labored as he faced Steve.

“Take a few breaths, okay?” Steve grabbed Bucky’s other arm and held him still. Rumlow moaned from where he lay on the ground but Steve ignored him. Instead he watched as the haze left Bucky's eyes and he began to focus. 

All at once he seemed to snap back into himself. “Steve?” 

“Hey Buck, how are you feeling?”

But Bucky didn’t answer; instead he wrenched himself out of Steve’s grasp. He surveyed his surroundings a bit wildly, his eyes flicking between Karpov’s body, the now unconscious Rumlow, and Steve.

“Bucky?” Steve asked, keeping his tone soft and calm.

If anything it made Bucky even more out of sorts. He jerked back from his examination of Karpov and met Steve’s eyes for one heartbreaking second. Then he ducked around Steve and he ran.

*** 

Just as he had in Paris, Bucky found himself running with no concept of time and no destination. The city blurred around him until, all at once, he found himself by the Tiber, miles outside of the city. The sun had long since set and this time Bucky found he had no motivation to try and find his way back to his hostel. Steve would probably be waiting for him and Bucky didn’t think he could face him right now.

Not after what he’d done. 

Two more deaths on his hands. 

He wasn’t sorry for killing Karpov, it had needed to be done. But he was sorry that Steve had seen him.

And Rumlow, the fury he’d felt watching Rumlow shoot Steve had doubled when that dumb skull mask had cracked in two and revealed Rumlow’s bruised and battered face. He’d been determined to end him.

But then Steve had been there pulling Bucky back, his stupid, cornflower blue gaze filled with a strange mixture of sadness, anger, and some other emotion that Bucky wasn’t sure he could name. It had been too much for Bucky to handle. He couldn’t bear the thought of Steve thinking less of him, of Steve being angry at him for his lack of control so he'd run. He was a coward and he'd run away.

Worries swarmed Bucky's mind as he stomped down closer to the river’s bank. His boots squished in the wet soil, the earth giving off a loamy smell. He wasn’t in downtown Rome anymore, but there were still people around. If he didn’t want to be spotted and made by some concerned citizen he needed to find cover. Though, honestly, his mad dash through the city and outer suburbs had probably already done that.

Ahead of him a small bridge stood over the river. It was an old, low-hanging thing, with a small bit of space between its planks and the ascending river bank. The soil beneath was far enough away from the river to be dry. It was the best place he would probably find for now, so once he got close enough he ducked under the bridge and was pleased to find no one else there. He crawled up underneath and pulled his legs in tight.

Exhaustion began to creep into his body. So much had happened today that he could barely keep track of it all. He unclipped his fanny pack, which, amazingly, had stayed with him throughout everything, (once again proving its usefulness), and rested his head on top of it. Not to sleep, just to rest. He couldn't afford to sleep in a place so unsecured.

But as he lay there a remarkable thing happened, the gentle sound of the river lapping the shore and the soft whoosh of the occasional car passing overhead came together to form a lullaby. Bucky drifted off to sleep.

And he dreamed.


	9. The Man Who Lives Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! We've made it to the last (official) chapter! I do have an epilogue in the works, but this is by and large the end of the line for our favorite duo (see what I did there?). A big thank you to everyone who left a kudos, a comment, or bookmark. I can't tell you how much those mean to me, especially for my first fic. I hope you enjoy the resolution and I'll see you in a few weeks for the final wrap-up. 
> 
> As always, please drop me a note and let me know what you think.

 

“I said life is a tale, it begins and it ends

And forever's a word that we can't understand

Well I know that my life's better when we're together

So why can't our story just go on forever?”

***

 

_ The dingy room was the same as the last two times he’d dreamt of it. Poorly lit and barely warmer than the frigid temperatures outside.  _

_ Steve, once again small and frail, lay upon the bed. His eyes bright with fever, his grin a bit desperate as he thrust the list of places into Bucky’s waiting hand. _

_ Bucky, once again in his adolescent body, took the paper in one hand while he gently pushed Steve back down on the bed with the other.  _

_ “Jesus Stevie, if you don’t stop moving around it will just get worse. Your ma will be furious with me if she comes back and sees you moved around.” Bucky couldn’t control his motions as he set the paper aside and began to tuck Steve back beneath the covers.  _

_ “Aw come on Buck, I’ll beat this one just like I did the last one, and the one before.” He wanted to pull Steve close, he wanted to tell him that it was okay, that Steve would pull through this and that one day he’d become as big and as strong on the outside as he was on the inside. _

_ But try as he might Bucky was trapped in his past motions. _

_ “I know you will Steve, but not without rest.” When Steve opened his mouth to protest Bucky cut him off, “Now settle down and I’ll take a look at our list. I gotta start planning now if we’re gonna go see all of them once you’re feeling better.” A huge grin spread across Steve’s flushed face and he finally lay still. _

_ Time blurred in Bucky’s memory, hours flew by in seconds and Bucky was aware that Steve hadn’t stirred in quite some time. He stood and got Steve some water. As much as he hated to wake Steve up he knew that Steve needed to drink something. _

_ Setting the glass of water on the rickety bedside table Bucky laid a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder and tapped him. There was no response. He tried again, but Steve still didn’t stir. His hand trembling, Bucky laid it to the frail blond’s forehand and quickly pulled it back. Steve was burning up, he felt hotter than a tea kettle just off the stove.  _

_ The next few hours were a blur of force-feeding Steve water and laying cooling towels on his head, of waiting for Mrs. Rogers to come home. Bucky didn’t dare leave Steve’s side to go and fetch her. He thought of running out to his own apartment down the street to send one of his sisters in his stead, but even going that far seemed dangerous. He didn’t want to leave Steve alone, not even for a minute. So he continued his vigil and prayed for Mrs. Rogers to come home as soon as possible. _

_ As he sat and tended to Steve he thought about all of the terrible ways his life would change without Steve. Steve was... Steve sunshine and spunk. He made everything interesting, everything brighter... _

_ Bucky couldn’t live without Steve.  _

_ He loved Steve. _

_ No, that wasn’t quite right… He was  _ **_in love_ ** _ with Steve. _

_ He stilled as the thought burst across his consciousness. He almost dropped the washcloth he was using to wipe Steve’s flushed face. _

_ He loved Steve. And not the kind of brotherly love he had for Becca, or the way he loved his parents. Bucky loved Steve the way that Mrs. Rogers still loved her dead husband. It was the kind of love that, well, that Bucky knew was only right between a man and woman… _

_ He sat, frozen, on a rickety stool next to Steve’s bed. His mind raced as he thought through what this meant. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. It was wrong. _

_ He remained stock still and took in Steve’s sweat-soaked body, heaving chest, and sunken eyes. Steve would very likely die tonight and when he did nothing would matter anymore.  _

_ Nothing.  _

_ Bucky took in a deep breath and let it out. _

_ It might be wrong to love Steve, but that didn’t change the fact that he did. _

_ Alone in the dim room, with only Steve’s ragged breathing for company, Bucky slowly bent down and pressed a careful kiss to Steve’s forehead. His forehead was burning to the touch and clammy but Bucky didn't care. He breifly wondered what Steve’s lips would feel like, but he knew he would never find out.  _

_ And that was okay. _

_ It didn’t matter if he ever got to kiss Steve again, it didn’t matter if he had to carry this secret with him to his grave because no matter what happened he knew in that moment that he'd stand by Steve's side forever. _

***

The sound of a car passing overhead jolted Bucky awake. For a disorienting few seconds, he thought he was back in Steve’s apartment, desperately begging to God or anyone else listening to let Steve live. To let his frail body push forward once more.

But he wasn’t in the Rogers’ too small apartment. He wasn’t in Brooklyn. He wasn’t even in the United States.

He was under a bridge outside of Rome covered in mud.

But all that mattered was that he finally understood why he’d made that desperate and impossible promise to a dying boy. He knew why Steve pulled him like the moon pulled the tides and why the idea of Steve hating him made Bucky want to die. He even knew why Steve had been the one to break the Winter Soldier programming.

He loved Steve. 

He was  **_in love_ ** with Steve. 

And, apparently, he always had been.

He sat in silence and listened to the Tiber slowly gurgle past as he examined every interaction he’d had with Steve since D.C.

It seemed so fucking obvious now.

Of course he loved Steve, how could he not? Loving Steve was like, well, _breathing._ It was something he’d been doing all this time without ever realizing it.

Around him the dark of night slowly gave way to dawn as he sat and replayed the memory of that Brooklyn night over and over again. Other memories started to flow in from his subconscious. The revelation about Steve opening a floodgate.

He remembered his mother’s face when she was scolding him for getting into another fight. His sister’s laugh as he helped braid her hair. Mrs. Rogers pulling him aside one afternoon and thanking him for looking out for her little Stevie.

Tears streamed down his face as he thought of all he’d lost. All that Hydra had taken from him. 

They hadn’t taken Steve away from him though. 

Bucky thought about the look the blond had given him yesterday. Could Steve forgive him for all that he’d done? 

He supposed there was really only one way to find out.

As the sun finally broke the horizon, Bucky crawled out from under the bridge and started the long walk back to Rome.

***

Steve very rarely missed the ability to get drunk. But as the evening dragged into the night and the night turned into morning he desperately wished he could get shitfaced. 

For once in his life, Steve had let duty fall to the side. He had watched, clutching Bucky’s discarded backpack to his chest, as Natasha, Sam, and Clint brought the local police and officials up to speed.

In a stroke of pure luck, no civilians had been killed, though a few had been injured. By unspoken agreement his teammates had left Bucky out of their reports, saying instead that Hydra had gone after them. 

Of course, with his short hair, well-fed frame, and the rested appearance Bucky no longer looked like the man who’d terrorized D.C. But, still it paid to be careful.

It had taken longer than Steve had wanted for the police and Italian agencies to let them go back to their hotel. Longer still to bring Tony up to speed when he’d arrived.

Through it all Steve had been unable to get that final, panic-stricken look Bucky had sent him out of his head. 

Bucky had been scared of him, of  _ him.  _ He’d run away and Steve felt it like a kick in the gut.

It was mid-morning now. One by one the others had filtered off to sleep or eat but Steve hadn’t been able to do either. He’d sat in an armchair in Tony’s room (the penthouse of course) and replayed the scene over and over again.

At some point in the early hours of the day, Nat had come up from her room and handed him a pair of civilian clothes to wear. Then she’d grabbed his hand and dragged him to a shower.

“You smell.” She’d explained as she’d pushed him into the luxurious bathroom.

There was really no arguing with Natasha so Steve had showered and put on clean clothes. Then he’d gone right back to sitting in his armchair and staring out into nothing.

Hours later the rest of the team had filtered back in again to eat a late-day breakfast. The conversation flowed over him, the topics were kept light and airy. Clint talked about the Colosseum, a monument he was suddenly obsessed with seeing, Sam talked about what he and Steve had seen in Paris, carefully omitting the parts of the trip that involved Bucky - though Kale did get a mention.

“Cap? Steve…?” Steve jolted back to awareness to Sam calling his name. 

“Oh, what? Sorry I missed the question.” 

“Tony asked what you thought of the hotel room in Paris.” Sam explained. His brown eyes were so soft and kind that for a mortifying second Steve thought he might cry. 

Clearly, Sam thought so as well because he quickly kneeled down by Steve and said, “Steve, he wasn’t running from you. He’d just killed Karpov, he’d faced down Rumlow, he was overwhelmed and probably didn’t know what he was doing."

Steve shook his head and lowered it into his hands. His eyes were burning now but he would be damned if he started crying.

There was silence for a few minutes as Steve nervously ran his fingers through his hair and continued to stare down at the floor.

It was Tony who finally broke the silence. “Cap, I know you’re hurting. But you have to know we’ll find him. I’ve got Jarvis working on it right no-”

“And what if he doesn’t want to be found Tony?” Steve’s voice was ragged despite his best efforts to keep it level and controlled.

“What if he wants to be done with me? It’s my fault he’s even in this position. Without me out there on the front he never would have stayed after Azzano, he would have been sent home, he could have seen his family again, grown old. But he stayed with me and he got captured and-” Steve gulped and trailed off, refusing to look up at his team. The weight of their stares was unbearable, their pity and concern making the room feel heavy.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He stood abruptly, the force of the movement slamming his armchair back into the wall and leaving a large divot. Steve, normally mortified when he let his strength get away from him, didn’t give it a second glance. He didn’t even bother with an excuse before he stumbled out of the room.  How had he sat still for so long? How long had he even been sitting?

He ran down the stairs and burst out of the hotel and onto the city streets. He was desperate to burn off some of this energy but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself so he settled for a fast walk. 

Around him, the streets were filled with people. He began to walk aimlessly while he replayed yesterday’s fight over and over again in his head. What could he have done differently? How could he have done better? 

Eventually, these thoughts gave way to other, more painful memories:

_ Bucky’s fingers slipping through his own, the wind whipping away Bucky’s last scream. _

_ The Winter Soldier facing him, his mask torn off, his eyes blank. _

_ Bucky laughing at something Dum Dum said, his eyes meeting Steve’s across the fire. _

_ Standing back to back with Buck in an alleyway, blood running down his nose as the two of them fought a group of bullies. _

The sun had dropped low in the sky by the time Steve decided to take a break. For the first time in hours, he looked up and examined his surroundings.

He found himself on a small hill, a waist-high stone wall to his right. Below the wall and a bit further down the hill the Roman Forum stretched out before him. 

Leaning his elbows on the wall, Steve watched the tourists mill around the ancient ruins below. The sun cast long shadows and for a second his fingers itched to try and capture the scene on paper. Instead, he leaned his head against his forearms and began again to try and reimagine how he could have handled yesterday better. 

Lost in his thoughts and exhausted as he was it took Steve longer than it should have to sense someone approaching him. It was, no doubt, a fan eager for a picture or an autograph. Any other day, truly any other day Steve would have been happy to meet them.

But today he felt hollowed out and empty. Today he wasn’t Captain America, he was just plain old Steve Rogers. 

He felt the person lean up against the wall beside him. Not too close, but enough to make it clear an interaction was expected.

Steve didn’t bother to lift his head. 

“Look, it’s really not a good time for me pal.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad because I’ve been waiting almost a century for you and I’m sure as hell not gonna reschedule.” The familiar drawl sent an almost electric jolt through Steve’s body with the end result being that he flung his head back so fast and hard that he promptly fell on his ass.

He sat there, gaping up at the man leaned so casually against the wall.

Bucky laughed, a sound more nervous than anything else, and stuck out a hand to help Steve up. Steve grabbed it eagerly, pulled himself up and then, in what was probably the bravest thing he’d ever done (including fighting aliens and facing down an spoiled god) he held on to it.

“How’d you find me? How are you?” A million more questions threatened to clamor out of his mouth but Bucky cut him off with a shrug.

“You’re not exactly in disguise Stevie, all I had to do was ask a fellow tourist if they’d heard the rumor that Captain America was in town. Apparently, you’re trending on Twitter.” Bucky’s smile grew a little less nervous and a little more sly as he spoke.

Steve couldn’t help but smile in return. “How do you know what Twitter is, huh? You’re as old as I am jerk.”

Bucky’s smile only grew, “Well, I always was the brains of this operation.”

The two of them stood there, smiling at each other and holding hands for a few perfect moments.

“Bucky I-”

“Steve-”

All at once awkwardness descended and Steve dropped Bucky’s hand.

“No Bucky, let me. Look, I-I need to come clean about a few things,” Steve took a steadying breath. All of the speeches he’d composed disappearing as he stared into Bucky’s eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything, Buck. I should have found you sooner. I should have known that Azzano… that it changed you. I should have looked for you. And now, well, in Paris… I thought I could be the better person and let you go find what you need, I really thought I could put your needs first for once and let you go but... I can’t Buck. I just can’t. Please, please wherever you’re going, whatever this mission is that has you running all over Europe, let me come with you. I  _ need _ to be with you.” Steve gulped, his eyes flying from the sky to the Forum, to the ground and back, unable to continue holding Bucky’s gaze.

“Stev-”

“No, let me finish. I should have told you ages ago, but I was too scared and I thought, well, I thought you could do better than me. The truth is... I love you Bucky. I always have and I always will.”

For a moment the only sound was the wind and the distant chatter of tourists. Steve could feel his heart slowly start to disintegrate. He risked a glance at Bucky and felt his heart drop completely at the disbelief he saw there.

“I’ll go. I’ll leave you-”

“No, Steve do-”

“It’s fine, I’ll be fine. It’s dumb, you deserve bet-”

But Steve didn’t get to finish his thought because, in a move that caught him completely by surprise, Bucky reached out with one hand, yanked Steve forward by his shirt, and pressed his lips to Steve’s. 

For one perfect moment, everything that wasn’t Steve or Bucky ceased to exist.

With a shuddered gasp Bucky pulled himself back and rested his forehead against Steve’s. It was a quick kiss, chaste by modern standards, but Steve could still feel it all the way down to his toes.

Bucky sighed, the largest grin Steve had ever seen stretched across his face. 

“If I’d known that was all it took to get you to shut up and stop the dramatics I would have done it ages ago.”

“Really?” Steve blurted, ignoring the tease. “But Bucky, what about all of the… well all of the girls you took out? I didn't think..."

It was a few moments before Bucky answered,

“I don’t remember much from... before. I remembered even less before I started traveling,” Bucky paused, his lips moving slightly as he carefully selected his next words.

“That’s why, well that’s why I took this trip. To try and fill in some of the gaps. I don’t remember going out with any real clarity, but I suspect it was to protect us, to protect you. Things weren’t good then, not for, well for people like us.” 

When it was clear Bucky wasn’t going to elaborate any further Steve risked another question.

“But Bucky, we've never been to Rome and we were only in Paris for a day. If you were trying to jog your memories why not go to Brooklyn?”

When Bucky would have stepped back Steve wrapped his hands firmly around his waist and held him still. There were another few moments of silence while Bucky gathered his thoughts again.

Finally, he sighed, “We weren’t here but, well, I started to remember that we wanted to visit once. I don’t know how old we were, but you were sick, you were, well, really sick and you made a list of places…” he trailed off, his eyes closed as he thought back on the memory, so recently rediscovered.

A fuzzy memory started to emerge from deep within Steve’s subconscious. Bucky sitting next to his bed. He’d been so young then, all awkward angles, his dark hair unruly, but his face already turning heads. Steve’s included. 

Steve been sure that he was going to die. He’d felt it deep in his bones, so he’d made a list of places to see, a desperate attempt to motivate himself, to convince himself that death would pass over him again. 

“As long as we’re confessing things Stevie, that was the night I realized I loved you,” Bucky continued, his voice almost a whisper, his eyes still squeezed firmly shut. 

“It was also, uh, kind of our first kiss. I hope you aren't mad at me for it but once I realized I couldn't wake you up I just, well I realized how I felt and I, uh, I kissed you on the forehead.” 

All at once Steve was struck with the rest of the memory as clear as day. He’d handed the list to Bucky and then he’d passed out, the fever claiming him. He’d been burning up, his dreams filled with demons and the certainty that he’d go to hell for feeling the way he did about his best friend. And then he’d felt it - a soft cool touch on his brow, a moment of respite from the burning and the pain wracking his body. He’d clung to the sensation like a lifeline.

He’d always thought it had been his ma or a hallucination.

This time it was Steve who pulled Bucky forward for a kiss. 

A considerably longer span of time passed before the two separated again. 

“Well, if I remember right, you promised me that we’d see that whole list together.” Steve teased, a giddy sensation filling him as he gazed at Bucky. Bucky laughed joyfully and a happiness Steve didn’t think he’d ever felt before filled him.

“I guess we better start planning then Steve. You know I always keep my promises.”


	10. I Will Be Back One Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! Once again a HUGE thank you to everyone who's left a kudos, a comment, or generally made their presence known. It really meant a lot to have such support on my very first fic. I hope you all enjoyed the read and, if you did, drop me a comment. <3

“You made me swear I'd never forget

I made a vow I'd see you again

I will be back one day, and I'll find you

There by the great big lake”   
  


***

The plush cushion Bucky was currently sinking into was a far cry from the uncomfortable seat he’d sat in on his way to Paris all those months ago. 

A lot could change in four months. For one thing, he was riding in one of Tony Stark’s private jets and not jammed into a too small seat on a third-rate airline.

For another, he was no longer a nameless ghost letting the world pass him by. He had a name now, he had memories, and, most importantly, he had Steve.

A large snore tore through the otherwise quiet cabin. 

Bucky couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face at the sound. Smiling came easily for him now. He had had a lot of practice since he’d finally kissed Steve in Rome.

He’d had a lot of practice in a lot of other things too. He wished Steve was awake so that he could leer at him and make him blush. One of the many things he’d forgotten had been just how cute Steve was when he blushed. And just how easy it was to make him blush.

Of course, it hadn’t all been blushing and breaking hotel beds. There’d been a lot of talking about uncomfortable things, painful things. There’d been a lot of crying, which Bucky was not ashamed to admit. Emotions were healthy. That’s what Sam said and Bucky had decided he could trust him, if only because he’d taken care of Steve while Bucky had been gone.

It had been awkward at first, meeting the Avengers. It was always awkward to meet people that you had tried to kill… Not that Bucky had too much real experience with that. 

His first official meeting with Steve’s teammates had been filled with weapon pat downs, none too subtle threats of murder if he hurt Steve again, and inane quips from Tony about fanny packs. Steve had protested all of it. Bucky was honestly just relieved that Steve had managed to make some quality friends in his absence. All things considered it had gone well. Bucky had even managed to apologize to them in between Tony’s apparently never-ending monologue.

It was good. What was even better was the next day when Steve and Bucky had packed up their things and set off to tackle their long awaited travel list. Though invited, Sam had bowed out like the smart man he was and instead opted to go on an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas with his long neglected family. (As an apology for ruining Sam’s vacation, Steve had paid).

Now, after 12 countries, five new fanny packs, four more haircuts (Bucky), three months of travel, one detour to visit Kale, one beard (Steve’s), and innumerable selfies with tourists (#CapsMysteryMan trended for quite some time before the bombshell of Bucky’s identity finally hit the media) they were finally headed back to the states. Back to Brooklyn.

Bucky peered out the window again and watched as the plane began to break through the clouds and start its descent. He’d been nervous, so nervous to return the past few weeks. But now that he actually _was_  he felt his nerves begin to drain away. With Steve’s solid presence pressed firmly against his side he knew he could handle whatever got thrown at him. 

There was still a lot outside of their control. Sure, Bucky was being heralded as a tragic POW by the media, a native son left behind by his country (Pepper Potts and the Stark Industries PR machine were truly a force to be feared) but Congress could still decide to charge him, he could still end up in jail. Hydra was still out there, the remains of SHIELD were still knocking around, and really life in general was a chaotic mess most days.

Despite it all Bucky was, well, happy. He was happy and he was healing. He still had nightmares more nights than not, still had anxiety attacks, a mess of emotions, and substantial gaps in his memory that he suspected would always be there. But after the past three months Bucky thought that he might have finally made enough good memories to balance out all of the bad ones. 

The plane dipped down beneath another patch of clouds and Bucky’s breath caught as New York’s beautiful skyline burst into view. It was different from what he remembered, but the sight of it still brought a little wetness to his eyes. As he let it soak in he felt the familiar tug of a long buried memory.

_ Bucky felt like he would burst as he watched New York disappear behind him. The energy on the boat was a curious mix of excitement, fear, and sadness. But as his fellow soldiers joked and jostled one another Bucky remained stock still, his eyes straining to see New York until the very last. He was leaving so much behind, with no guarantee that he'd ever return. He probably wouldn't ever return. He'd probably die over there and then who would take care of Steve? _

_ No. He wouldn't think like that.  _

_ "Don't you worry old girl, I'll be back one day." The whisper was half vow and half plea, so soft that no one but Bucky heard it. It didn't matter though, he'd made the promise and he intended to keep this one. No matter what. _

Bucky blinked and he was back in the plush cabin, New York City spread out below. 

Another snore filled the cabin and Bucky smiled again. It had taken almost a century, it had taken more from him than he could have ever imagined when he'd been that young soldier shipping out. But he'd made it back.

He'd made it home.


End file.
